Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Study Questions & Topics for Discussion

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Topics for Further Study

Find out more about the Roman Catholic monk Thomas Merton, who was also a poet and a political activist. What causes did he speak out about? How did he understand the ideal balance between a life of contemplation and a life of activism?

Read some excerpts from Henry David Thoreau's Walden; or, Life in the Woods, especially one or two passages in which he gives detailed accounts of his observations of nature. In terms of the amount of precise detail, how do his accounts compare with Dillard's? How would you compare the conclusions Thoreau and Dillard draw from their observations?

For a short time, Dillard considered submitting her manuscript to publishers under the name "A. Dillard" so the publishers would assume the author was a man. Do you think this would have fooled them? If you did not know the name of the author of Pilgrim at Tinker...
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