Compare and contrast Brent before and after the crash. How would you describe his character in the first chapter and how does he change over the course of his cross-country journey?

What does the whirligig represent for each of the characters who encounter one? How do their interpretations of the whirligig’s meaning relate to Brent and his story?

Brent recalls from English class that a karass is a “a disparate group of people linked together without their knowledge” (48). Why does this thought come to his mind when it does? What are the various instances of karass in Whirligig?