Book Club Discussion Questions
When Light Breaks Through
1: Is Ann Putnam a sympathetic character? How does she compare with Abby Williams?
2: What do you think of Thomas Putnam? Joseph Green suggests to Ann that she can try to hate the sin but love the sinner when it comes to her father. Is this realistic?
3: What do you think of Samuel Nurse’s decisions?
4: How does Joseph Green change in the course of the novel?
5: How are seventeenth-century marriage and family life portrayed in the Putnams and the Greens?
6: Who is your favorite character and why?
7: What do you think is the most effective scene in the novel?
8: The witch trials are primarily legal proceedings. What was your response to the trial scenes?
9: Thomas Brattle is an example of the new scientific way of thinking that was developing at the end of the 17th century. How do older ways of thinking come into the novel?
10: How do Joseph Green’s religious views compare with your general sense of what “the Puritans” thought and how they behaved? What seems to be most important to him about Christianity?
11: When does the light break through? Does this happen more than once? Does it make a difference to Salem Village?
12: Were you acquainted with the Salem witch trials before you read this book? Were you surprised by any of the historical information it contains? Did it change your view of the witchcraft episode?
13: Are there conflicts and events in the contemporary world that have similarities to those in the novel? If so, does it suggest a viable approach to them?