The Celebrants: Analytical Essay Prompts on Friendship and Grief

These twelve prompts are designed to move beyond summary and into sustained analysis of Steven Rowley's The Celebrants. Each prompt focuses on a specific craft element, character dynamic, or thematic tension in the novel, with evidence leads drawn directly from the opening chapters and the obituary that closes the narrative. Use the linked character and theme pages to deepen your close reading, and treat the sample thesis directions as starting points for your own argument, not as conclusions to reproduce. The best essays will test these directions against the novel's own complications and ambiguities.