In The Red Tent, we see Dinah grow from childhood to old age.What strikes you about the cultural differences Dinah encounters vis-à-vis food, clothing, work, and male-female relationships. The book travels from Haran (contemporary Iraq/Syria), through Canaan and into Shechem (Israel), and into Egypt.What effect does this have on the narrative? What effect does this have on the reader? Dinahs point of view is often one of an outsider, an observer.What do you think of this culture, in which the Feminine has not yet been totally divorced from the Divine? How does El, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, fit into this? In the novel, Rebecca is presented as an Oracle.Discuss the importance of Inna, Tabea, Werenro, and Meryt. Female relationships figure largely in The Red Tent.Discuss their relationships with each other, with Dinah, and with Jacob and his four wives. Does he treat Dinah differently from his sons? Does he feel differently about her? If so, how? How do the fertility childbearing and birthing practices differ from contemporary life? How are they similar? How do they compare with your own experiences as a mother or father? Childbearing and childbirth are central to The Red Tent.

Dinah is rich in 'mothers.' Discuss the differences or similarities in her relationship with each woman.

What do you make of the relationships among the four wives?.He has four wives compare his relationship with each woman? Discuss the marital dynamics of Jacobs family.Does The Red Tent raise questions about other women in the Bible? Does it make you want to re-read the Bible and imagine other untold stories that lay hidden between the lines? Read Genesis 34 and discuss how The Red Tent changes your perspective on Dinahs story and also on the story of Joseph that follows.This guide can help spur creative discussions of the timeless story. Readers of The Red Tent will view the Book of Genesis in a new light. In the Biblical tale Dinah is given no voice she is the narrator of The Red Tent, which reveals the life of ancient womanhoodthe world of the red tent. In Chapter 34 of the Book of Genesis, Dinahs tale is a short, horrific detour in the familiar narrative of Jacob and Joseph.Īnita Diamant imaginatively tells the story from the fresh perspective of its women. The Red Tent tells the little-known Biblical story of Dinah, daughter of the patriarch Jacob and his wife, Leah.

The red tent novel