Simonopio arrives as a dark-skinned child with a serious birth defect. What prompts the Morales family to accept this boy, who is obviously not like them in any respect, as part of their family?

Segovia describes the era of the novel as a period of great technological advances, though none of those developments seems to add security or peace of mind to the characters’ lives. Do you think today’s technological advances are more likely to offer security and peace of mind than those described in the novel? If not, why don’t added convenience, productivity, speed, communication, and information increase life’s serenity and certainty?

Segovia’s description of the Spanish flu pandemic, though written five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, seems eerily prescient in many respects, including the foolish behavior of individuals regarding safety precautions and risks. Why did humans make the same mistakes dealing with COVID-19 that our less well-informed forbears did in 1918?