1. Compare Christopher Isherwood’s treatment of homosexuality in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s to its treatment in the movie adaptation of his work, Cabaret. How do the treatments differ? How are they the same?

2. In Journey to a War, how does Isherwood go about reporting and analyzing what he sees in China? Is he simply a ‘‘tourist’’ as some critics suggested?

3. Bob Wood, the main character in The World in the Evening, fantasizes about marching ‘‘down the street with a banner saying, ‘We’re queer because we’re queer because we’re queer.’’’ Why would this have been a virtual impossibility in the 1940s, the time in which the novel was set? Using your library and the Internet, find out what restrictions, legal and social, were placed on homosexuals at the time.

4. Using your library and the Internet, research the early gay civil rights movement—particularly the Mattachine Society and the Stonewall Riots. Write a short essay summarizing your findings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Books

Finney, Brian. Christopher Isherwood: A Critical

Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Mizejewski, Linda. Divine Decadence: Fascism, Female Spectatorship, and the Makings of Sally Bowles. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Piazza, Paul. Christopher Isherwood: Myth and Anti-Myth.

New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. Wade, Stephen. Christopher Isherwood. New York: St.

Martin’s Press, 1992.

Periodicals

Boorman, John. ‘‘Stranger in Paradise.’’ American Film 12.1 (1986): 53–57.

Wilson, Colin. ‘‘An Integrity Born of Hope: Notes on Christopher Isherwood.’’ Twentieth Century Literature (October, 1976): 312–331.

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