The Great Gilly Hopkins | Essay & Project Ideas

The Great Gilly Hopkins Ideas for Reports and Papers

1. Trace Gilly Hopkins's development as a character by examining her use of similes and metaphors. How does her use of figurative language underscore her changing picture of the world and her relationship with those around her?

2. From the evidence in the novel, reconstruct the first eleven years of Gilly's life. Does such a reconstruction explain why she is so angry?

3. "Galadriel" (Gilly's full name) comes from J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings, which Miss Harris sends to Gilly in Virginia. After Gilly has read the books, she knows who Galadriel was.

Compare the character of Galadriel in Tolkien with Paterson's Gilly.

4. What direction do you think Gilly's life will take with her grandmother in Virginia?

5. Does the frequent mention of television in the novel merely give us a realistic rendering of...
(read more)