Untamed

74 pages • 2 hours read

Untamed

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Quiz

Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes

Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.

Prologue and Part 1

Reading Check

1. Where do Doyle and her wife go in the prologue’s opening anecdote?

2. At what age does Doyle believe children begin to become “tamed” by society’s expectations?

3. What eating disorder did Doyle once suffer from?

4. What does Doyle confess to her couple’s counselor in her individual session?

5. What animal does Tish become obsessed with helping?

6. Whom does Doyle refer to as “The Golden Ones”?

7. What object given to her by her grandmother did Doyle cherish when she was a child?

Multiple Choice

1. What kind of animal is Tabitha?

A) dog

B) cheetah

C) elephant

D) monkey

2. What event in her life does Doyle credit with reawakening the wildness inside her?

A) her first daughter’s birth

B) meeting Abby

C) leaving the Catholic church

D) attending therapy

3. What Biblical story does Doyle recall studying in her CCD class?

A) Noah’s Ark

B) Daniel and the Lion’s Den

C) David and Goliath

D) Adam and Eve

4. Why is Doyle so angry at her husband when they decide to get couple’s therapy?

A) He has cheated on her.

B) He has physically threatened her.

C) He has moved into a separate apartment.

D) He has refused to speak to her for a week.

5. What does Doyle notice about her children’s shower products?

A) The smell of them reminds her of her husband.

B) Her son uses significantly more than her daughters.

C) They are more expensive than her own.

D) They reinforce gender stereotypes.

6. How does Doyle try to help Tish get past her worries about global warming?

A) She takes her to the zoo.

B) She asks her teacher for help.

C) She lies to her.

D) She buys her a book focused on solutions to the problem.

7. What quality does Doyle notice in both girls and women that she thinks comes from looking outside themselves—instead of inside themselves—for answers?

A) indecision

B) narcissism

C) happiness

D) politeness

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What bothers Doyle about the way Tabitha is treated?

2. What does Doyle’s mother’s reaction to her engagement to Abby make Doyle reflect on, and why?

3. How did her CCD class teach Doyle to still her curiosity and stop asking questions?

4. How does Doyle’s couple’s therapist characterize Doyle’s relationship with Abby?

5. What does Doyle finally decide is positive about Tish’s concerns about global warming?

6. What did Doyle do in high school that as an adult she sees as evidence of her desperation to be popular?

7. What is well-timed about Doyle’s first meeting with Abby?

Part 2

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the poem that serves as an epigraph for Part 2?

2. What major change did Doyle make in her life when she got pregnant with her son at age 26?

3. What feeling does Doyle believe caused her child-self to become “tame”?

4. When Doyle first considers leaving her husband, where does she look for advice?

5. Instead of from her “training,” where does Doyle eventually decide her answers have to come from?

6. What does Doyle call the calm inner voice she eventually got in touch with?

7. In “Key Three,” what does Doyle discuss the evolution of?

Multiple Choice

1. What best describes Doyle’s feelings as she began to build a life as a stereotypical wife and mother?

A) proud and confident

B) serene and untroubled

C) rebellious and angry

D) restless and unsatisfied

2. In Part 2, what does Doyle call the “keys to freedom”?

A) emotion, intuition, imagination, and courage

B) money, power, and love

C) cooperation, belonging, empathy, and community

D) justice, equality, and sisterhood

3. Where does Doyle first reconnect with her own emotions?

A) in the hospital after giving birth to Tish

B) in the restaurant when she first meets Abby

C) in recovery meetings for her substance use disorder

D) in her home office as she writes her second book

4. What is the inspiring message on the card that Doyle gets from a friend when she is trying to make up her mind about leaving her husband?

A) “Free Your Mind, and the Rest Will Follow.”

B) “People Are as Happy as they Decide to Be.”

C) “Give Yourself Permission to Say No.”

D) “Be Still and Know.”

5. What does Doyle see as the job of revolutionaries and visionaries?

A) to bring the unseen order into being in the “real” world

B) to open the doors of the cages we live in

C) to show others the “dragon” of hidden truth

D) to help others access their own imaginations and intuition

6. On page 66, what does Doyle say her own purpose is?

A) to “unlock the cage for others”

B) to “listen deeply to women”

C) to “share her truth unflinchingly”

D) to “imagine a better world” for her daughters

7. When Doyle uses the word “stalking” to refer to women pacing along the borders of their own lives, what or whom is she alluding to?

A) guards

B) dragons

C) Tabitha

D) polar bears

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the central thematic point of the poem that Doyle uses as an epigraph for Part 2?

2. Describe the organization of Part 2 of Untamed.

3. What does Doyle say can be useful about pain?

4. How are meditation and mindfulness training connected to what Doyle calls “the Knowing”?

5. According to Doyle, what is the difference between the “seen” and the “unseen” orders of faith?

6. What does Doyle use anecdotes about other women’s lives to illustrate in Part 2?

7. Why does Doyle use the title “Build and Burn” in the section of Part 2 where she discusses courage?

Part 3 and Epilogue

Reading Check

1. What does Doyle call the feeling that spurred her bulimia?

2. How old is Doyle when she begins binging and purging?

3. What is Doyle doing for a living when she finds out she is pregnant with her first child?

4. What painting inspires Doyle to think about the beauty of duality?

5. What does Doyle think makes Amma different from Tish?

6. What definition does Doyle give for her concept of a “Touch Tree”?

7. In the poem Doyle discusses in the Epilogue, what is God’s answer to the question he is asked?

Multiple Choice

1. What does Doyle say she relied on in public to quiet the “Ache”?

A) relaxation techniques

B) anti-anxiety medication

C) arguing

D) alcohol

2. What message does Doyle see on a colleague’s door that inspires her to keep trying to get sober for her child?

A) “We make the road by walking.”

B) “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.”

C) “We can do hard things.”

D) “Energy and persistence conquer all.”

3. What prevents Doyle from going to see her sister immediately when her sister is about to give birth?

A) her husband

B) her drinking

C) her grandmother’s health

D) the birth of her own child

4. Where does Doyle travel with her parents and find herself intrigued by the location’s long history?

A) Delhi

B) Prague

C) Beijing

D) Paris

5. What word’s definition does Doyle think about when she takes her daughters to get their ears pierced?

A) beautiful

B) brave

C) feminine

D) independent

6. According to Doyle, what is the meaning of the word “selah”?

A) pause and reflect

B) conquer fear

C) free the mind

D) imagine into being

7. What does Doyle raise money for with the philanthropic group Together Rising?

A) unhoused persons

B) separated immigrant families

C) domestic violence shelters

D) substance abuse facilities

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What are some of the consequences that alcohol addiction had in Doyle’s life?

2. When she is in Ohio, what does Doyle finally come to realize about the “Ache” she has always felt?

3. What are the “ghosts” that Doyle says she was haunted by in her twenties?

4. Why does Doyle refer to her husband’s infidelity as a “jagged gift”?

5. What does Doyle believe is the reason that women dismiss themselves and their own desires?

6. What realization does Doyle come to about motherhood when she is doing her daughter’s hair one evening?

7. How does Doyle explain the link between the emergence of the anti-abortion movement and racism?

Quizzes – Answer Key

Prologue and Part 1

Reading Check

1. the zoo (Prologue)

2. ten (Part 1)

3. bulimia (Part 1)

4. She is in love with Abby. (Part 1)

5. polar bears (Part 1)

6. popular kids (Part 1)

7. a snow globe (Part 1)

Multiple Choice

1. B (Prologue)

2. B (Part 1)

3. D (Part 1)

4. A (Part 1)

5. D (Part 1)

6. C (Part 1)

7. A (Part 1)

Short-Answer Response

1. Doyle dislikes the way that the zookeeper treats Tabitha like a tame animal; she thinks that Tabitha’s nature is inherently wild and that she should be able to live accordingly. (Prologue)

2. Doyle’s mother becomes very emotional and tells Abby that Doyle has not looked so alive since she was ten. This makes Doyle reflect on what might have happened in her life at age ten that would have caused her to lose her “spark.” (Part 1)

3. When Doyle questioned her CCD teacher’s improbable explanation of the etymology of the word “woman,” she was told that original sin was the result of a woman’s curiosity. (Part 1)

4. The therapist tells her that Abby is a “dangerous distraction” and that she should end the relationship immediately, because “It won’t end well.” (Part 1)

5. She decides that Tish’s sensitivity is like a superpower and that it allows her to understand things that other people need to slow down and pay more attention to. (Part 1)

6. She rigged the voting for homecoming so that she would win election to the homecoming court. (Part 1)

7. Doyle is on a book tour, feeling insecure about promoting Love Warrior, the book about her now-failed marriage. She is beginning to question things that she has always assumed to be true about herself—and this is when she meets Abby and opens herself to the possibility of a relationship with a woman. (Part 1)

Part 2

Reading Check

1. “Dropping Keys” (Part 2)

2. She stopped drinking. (Part 2)

3. shame (Part 2)

4. the internet (Part 2)

5. her soul (Part 2)

6. the Knowing (Part 2)

7. her faith (Part 2)

Multiple Choice

1. D (Part 2)

2. A (Part 2)

3. C (Part 2)

4. D (Part 2)

5. A (Part 2)

6. B (Part 2)

7. C (Part 2)

Short-Answer Response

1. Although women often end up being “caged” by the expectations of others—including other women—they can be freed by the actions of women outside the “cage.” (Part 2)

2. Doyle first introduces the idea of being caged or tamed by shame and the four “keys to freedom” from this condition. The rest of Part 2 is organized into sections covering each of the “keys” in depth. (Part 2)

3. She says that pain can help people grow and change. (Part 2)

4. Doyle first accesses the calm, self-aware feeling that she comes to call “the Knowing” through periods of meditation and reflection; she suggests that the reader can use similar techniques to access this feeling. (Part 2)

5. Doyle says that the “seen” order of faith is the reality around us. The “unseen” order, by contrast, is a truer, more beautiful world that we imagine. (Part 2)

6. Doyle uses anecdotes from the lives of women who write to her to show both that she is listening to other women and that other women can listen to their discontent and learn to live more authentically. (Part 2)

7. She believes that in order to make a new, more authentic life, women must have the courage to destroy parts of their old lives. (Part 2)

Part 3 and Epilogue

Reading Check

1. the Ache (Part 3)

2. ten (Part 3)

3. teaching third grade (Part 3)

4. the Mona Lisa (Part 3)

5. Amma is more independent and confident. (Part 3)

6. a home base (Part 3)

7. “I am.” (Epilogue)

Multiple Choice

1. D (Part 3)

2. C (Part 3)

3. C (Part 3)

4. D (Part 3)

5. B (Part 3)

6. A (Part 3)

7. B (Part 3)

Short-Answer Response

1. She was arrested several times, was physically ill, and became distant from her family. (Part 3)

2. Feeling this way is not a flaw of hers; this “Ache” is what connects people to one another and their shared grief over the losses that are a part of life. (Part 3)

3. The “ghosts” are imagined perfect human women. (Part 3)

4. Discovering her husband’s cheating hurt, like being cut by something “jagged,” but this discovery was also a liberating gift. Doyle found out that her attempts to be a “good” woman by being a good wife were not enough to create the marriage she wanted and was able to release herself from this expectation. (Part 3)

5. Western culture was built on—and continues to benefit from—the control of women’s minds and behavior. (Part 3)

6. Women are encouraged to martyr themselves for their children, but this sets a bad example by encouraging them to believe that women should sacrifice themselves for others. (Part 3)

7. The evangelical anti-abortion movement arose largely as a way to unite evangelicals into a solid voting block—not for the overt purpose of opposing abortion, but for the covert purpose of supporting segregation in schools. (Part 3)