A Mouth Is Always Muzzled: Six Dissidents, Five Continents, and the Art of Resistance

A Mouth Always Muzzled: Six Dissidents, Five Continents, and the Art of Resistance
by Natalie Hopkinson

Discussion Questions I

1. What does the phrase “ Your Eyes Pass Me” signify and is it good glimpse into the rest of the book? (Page 1)

2.     Why does Mashramani bring Bernadette Persaud painful memories of working Guyana in the 1970s? (Pages 18-19)

3.     Who are the “fluttering class” and do they extend beyond Guyana? (Page 34)

4.     What finally launched Persaud’s career? (Page 42)

5.     What are Persaud’s political critiques shrouded in and can you name any other artists or movements that use deceptively bright colors while depicting more serious topics or emotions? (Page 43)

6.     What has Ruel Johnson done to bring about his vision of a viable, self-supporting creative sector in Guyana? (Page 52)

7.     What did Ruel mean when he said, “ If our problems are, at core, cultural, our solutions must be cultural as well”? (Page 53)

8.     What are “Chocolate Cities”? (Page 54)

9.     What did Hopkinson mean when she wrote, “ Our domestic lives are still being shaped by the culture of domination that took root in those fields”? (Page 73)

10.  What did Walker’s installation at the Domino Factory bring vividly into focus and what were the differences between plantations in the American South and the West Indies? (Page 75)

11.  According to Hopkinson what did the British do to create a legacy of alcohol abuse, rum shop culture and domestic abuse? (Page 79-80)

12. What did Walker keep as a souvenir from her installation?

Discussion Questions II

1. After he won the Booker’s Prize who did John Berger give his prize money to and why? (Pages 84-85)

2.     Why was Guyana, then known as the colony of British Guiana, often referred to as “Booker’s Guiana”? (Page 96)

3.     Where was Martin Carter’s collection Poems of Resistance printed and why? (Page 103)

4.     According to Carter why is the “mouth always muzzled”? (Page 105)

5.     What activities did Walter Rodney engage in that could have been seen as allegedly inciting the working people? (Page 112)

6.     What did Rastafarianism aim to do? (Pages 118-119)

7.     Why did Persaud use circles and squares in her work? (Page 149)

8.     How are Bernadette Persaud and Ruel Johnson “two clear windows” into the challenge of survival? How do they rise to the challenge? (Pages 155-156)

9. Amongst many, what are some of the artist roles in society that Hopkinson noted in the last pages of the book?