The Cage

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. In the Cage, the author uses images of darkness and light both literally and figuratively.

• How does Riva’s experience of darkness and light shape the reader’s understanding of the Holocaust? (topic sentence)
• Identify 2 pivotal moments in the text that use images of darkness and light. What is the author trying to convey about how Riva and other Jewish people felt during the Holocaust?
• In your conclusion, discuss how the author uses darkness/light to convey a message about Humanity and Community Memory.

2. Riva and Yulek share a mutual adoration for “beauty.”

• What is the role of beauty in the conflicted, death-riddled world of The Cage? (topic sentence)
• Does beauty serve a single function in Riva’s life? Or does it have dual purposes?
• In your conclusion, explain how beauty is a source of both hope and pain for Riva, as part of the renewal process in Nature and Life Cycles.

3. Riva becomes the symbolic mother of her younger siblings when she is 16 years old.

• What does it mean to Riva to be a mother? (topic sentence)
• Who else in The Cage is a mother, either literally or figuratively?
• In your conclusion, describe how Motherhood is a core theme in The Cage, and the way in which concepts of “mother” and “motherhood” take on a new meaning during the suffering of the Holocaust.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. What role do books and education play in Riva’s life? Describe how Education, Writing, and Books connect Riva to her community—to her brothers, to her first love (Yulek), and eventually to her fellow prisoners in the camps. How is The Cage a testament to the importance of education while being a document for education in and of itself? In your conclusion, analyze the final pages of The Cage, which highlight the library books that Riva, Motele, and Moishele leave behind. Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the novel.

2. Throughout the text, Riva relies on her mother’s words to push through the conflict. How does the phrase “As long as there is life, there is hope” shape Riva’s actions and relationships? This phrase appears both at the beginning of the story and at the end, with Riva speaking these words to her own daughter, Nancy. How is this phrase embedded into the fabric of what it means to be a mother for Riva and Motherhood in general? Support your argument with text support.

3. Traditional values and stories are important to Riva, from the beginning to the end of her life. In what ways and to what extent do Jewish holidays and narratives shape communities and create space for survival in the hopeless, dark, chaotic world of the labor camps? In your response, examine the cycle of Jewish holidays that appear throughout the text. How do these holidays inform the theme of Humanity and Community Memory, particularly for Jewish people, as well as the theme of Nature and Life Cycles? Support your ideas with evidence drawn from throughout the text.