Discussion Questions:
- How did it feel to be inside Eileen's head? Did you understand her or sympathize with her?
- Is Eileen the hero, villain, or victim of her story?
- On page 27 Eileen encounters a rape victim wanting to face her accuser at the prison and she denies her access. Eileen says "I don't know why I was so cold to her. I suppose I may have been envious. No one ever tried to rape me, after all. I'd always believed that my first time would be by force." What other ways does violence show up in the book?
- The book is narrated by Eileen as a much older woman, how does the space between narrative and narrator affect the development of the story?
- The narrator tells us that ‘this is not a love story’ and at times that a certain detail or scene is ‘not the point of this at all’. Do you always agree with her? Does this narrative signposting help us understand the ‘point’ of it all? What effect does this interjection have on the plot?
- Eileen is often obsessing over her own body and describing it terms of shame, disgust, violence and fascination. On page 24 she mentions "I didn't want anyone to think I was susceptible to bad breath or that there were any organic processes occurring inside my body at all. Having to breathe was an embarrassment in itself." What were some other body obsessions she had? How do they contribute to the mood or plot of the book. How do they effect the way you view Eileen?
- Eileen enjoys living in her own filth, is obsessed with her bowel movements, and most of the time she wishes her father were dead. Of her own moral character, she tells: ‘I was a shoplifter, a pervert, you might say, and a liar.’ Do you agree with her self-assessment? How does Eileen’s ‘likability’ affect your reading? Are there moments that shock or awe you? Does liking the protagonist matter?
- In an interview with the Guardian Moshfegh says, ‘Eileen is not perverse. I think she’s totally normal… I haven’t written a freak character; I’ve written an honest character.’ Do you agree? Discuss the different ways truth is explored in the novel.
- At the end of the very first chapter we read: ‘So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me… This is the story of how I disappeared.’ And so we learn very early on that something is going to happen, and soon. The novel is peppered with hints of an impending schism. How does this foreboding affect the reading experience? In what other ways does the author build suspense and mystery?
- Eileen tells her story as an old woman, looking back at a twenty-four-year-old version of herself. Her memory, she admits, is fallible and there are some things she remembers more clearly than others. She also benefits from hindsight. How might this unreliable narration affect the story? What is its effect on the plot and perception of the characters? Is the narrator Eileen a different character to the young Eileen?
- Moshfegh admitted she wrote the book "as a fuck-you joke, also I’m broke, also I want to be famous. It was that kind of a gesture." Knowing that does it influence the way you interpret the novel? Could the authors intent have formed who Eileen was?
- Let's talk about Rebecca. Do you think she was a real person or a manifestation of Eileen?
