Shaman: Lit Circles

We've read the third chapter in The Woman Warrior and have been assigned to do another literature circle post. (Mine is post is late.) The role I chose was Director for Drama. The role's description is to give instructions to actors for key passages.

Page 58 (2nd paragraph): Maxine finds the photo of her mother's graduating class.
Maxine will take the photo out of the metal tube and hold it clutched in both hands immediately sliding her thumb under her mother's face. The camera focuses on that face. ("I picked out my mother immediately.") She glances up at her mother and back at the photo a few times with a mildly surprised look on her face. ("Her face is exactly her own... She is so familiar...") She looks at the photo again this time looking at all of the people in it. The camera zooms in on different faces that are distinctly different from the mother's face that makes her look older and stern than the rest. ("...comparing her to other women./ My mother is not soft... My mother is not humorous... My mother does not have smiling eyes...") Maxine gives curious, slightly doleful look to her mother. ("I can't tell if she's happy.")

Page 66 (2nd paragraph): Maxine's mother, Brave Orchid, scoffs at her friends' fears of ghosts. She searches the 'ghost room' and plans to spend the night there to prove there's nothing to fear.
A group of girls huddle together in the same bed staring apprehensively in the direction of the ghost room. Brave Orchid calmly lies in her own bed. One of the girls whisper, "Did you hear that?" They hear a thump and shriek huddling closer together, some giggling nervously. Brave Orchid sits up abruptly and gives a irate glare to the group. "That was someone who fell asleep reading in bed; she dropped her book." A girl sits up on her knees and puts her hands on her hips. Annoyed she challenges Brave Orchid. "If you're so sure why don't you go out there and take a look." They glare at each other then Brave Orchid flings back her sheets grabs her lamp and walks casually out the door.
After awhile she returns to the room just as calm as she exited saying she saw nothing. Her friends marvel at her bravery, whispering to each other how brave she was. The girl crosses her arms; upset she had lost, and argues, "The haunting starts at midnight. It's not quite eleven." Brave Orchid bits her lip then hardens her features. ("My mother may have been afraid, but she would be a dragoness...") She fakes a yawn and says, "I'm so sleepy . I don't want to wait until midnight." The girl smirks and opens her mouth to reply but Brave Orchid continues, saying, "I'll sleep in the ghost room. Then if anything happens, I won't miss it." She gives a condescending smile while the girls rushed to her side offering luck and charms. The girl sits at her bed alone with a scowl.

Page 83 (1st paragraph) : Maxine asks her mother where her dog and nurse-servant were.
Maxine asks curiously, obviously faking causality, "What happened to your dog when you came to America, Mother?" Her mother answers bluntly, "I don't know." Maxine asks in the same manner, "What happened to the slave?" Maxine's mother answers with, "I found her a husband," speaking irately as if it were a chore to do so. "How much money did you pay to buy her?" Maxine asks more intensely. Maxine's mother answers curtly, "One hundred and eighty dollars." Maxine asks eagerly, "How much money did you pay the doctor and the hospital when I was born?" Maxine's mother scoff and replies, "Two hundred dollars." Maxine looks down, sad, and responds with a quiet, "Oh..."
Maxine's mother watches her reaction out of the corner of her eye, sighs and continues in a slightly softer tone, "That's two hundred dollars American money." Maxine looks up abruptly and asks hopefully, "Was the one hundred and eighty dollars American money?" Her mother replies, "No..." "How much was it American money?" Maxine asks hesitantly. "Fifty dollars." Maxine smiles and her mother continues in her previous curt voice on the cost of the slaves in China, how cheep they were finishing with, "During the war, though, when you were born, many people gave older girls away for free. And here I was in the United States paying two hundred dollars for you." Maxine still smiles and obediently listens to her mother talk.
(This was how I interpreted this passage. Maxine is jealous of the nurse-servant and upset her mother paid almost the same amount for them. Her mother sees this and throws her a bone then returns to her usual state. Maxine understands.)

Page 95 (6th paragraph) : The villagers stone a crazy lady for signaling Japanese planes.
Villagers hurl rocks angrily shouting. The crazy lady cackles, whooping as she jumps out of the way of the stones. The villagers close in and some rocks hit the crazy lady and she yelps as they do. "Here. Here," Brave Orchid says sternly, pushing through the villagers. Reassuringly she tells them calmly, "I'll get her mirrors." The villagers calm down and watch as Brave Orchid holds out her hand and orders as if she were talking to a misbehaved child, "Give me your headdress." The crazy lady stares up at her grins and shakes her head rapidly. "See? She's a spy. Get out of the way doctor." One man yells pointing accusingly at the woman. Brave Orchid stands still. "You saw the way she flashed the signals. She comes to the river every day before the planes-" "She's only getting drinking water. Crazy people drink water too." Brave Orchid says.
A cup shatters at the woman's feet and she jumps up with a yelp. "Are you a spy? Are you?" A woman screams crazed. A grin breaks across the crazy lady's face and she narrows her eyes suspiciously. "Yes." She says in a slow and sure tone. The crowd looks at her in fright and anger. "I have great powers. I can make the sky rain fire. Me. I did that." She makes exaggerated hand gestures and slowly raises her voice, screaming the word "Me. I did that." "Leave me alone or I will do it again." She waves her hand as if she were banishing them then turns and runs toward a river she had been slowly edging to the entire performance. Just as she turns a stone rams the back of her head and she falls to her side without a sound.