The Compound

These prompts can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before or after reading the novel.

Pre-Reading “Icebreaker”

Imagine that you suspect that someone you love and trust has told you a terrible lie that affects your life in important ways. What would you do? Would you confront the person, try to gather more information from other sources, or just keep your suspicions to yourself? If you found out that your suspicions were correct, how might it affect you, both immediately and in the long term?

Teaching Suggestion: Use this prompt to guide students to think about how being lied to by a loved one relates to Shame, Guilt, and Relationships; Power, Control, and Intimacy; and Innocence and Experience. After students write or discuss, connect to the novel by explaining that many things about the protagonist’s life will strike them as suspicious, and that the first part of the book will be about his struggles to understand some of these unusual circumstances.

Post-Reading Analysis

There is more than one way to be “imprisoned.” Think about what this word means on its surface, and then think about what it means in a broader sense: to be involuntarily confined, to feel as if there is no escape from limiting circumstances. How are Eli and his family literally imprisoned by Rex? In what other, non-literal ways, are Eli and others being held prisoner, or holding themselves prisoner? How has this situation changed—or not changed—by the end of the story?

Teaching Suggestion: Guide students to see how family relationships, feelings like shame and guilt, and even innocence are sources of confinement in The Compound. Help them explore the difference between shame and guilt and see that there is a difference between the healthy limitations that are a normal part of relationships and the dysfunctional patterns that emerge when relationships become manipulative because of someone’s desire for power and control.