STAGE

The Death of
2 Karen Silkwood
Joyce Hannam

Introduction

This ungraded summary is for the teacher’s use only

and should not be given to students.

The story
Karen Silkwood, a woman in her twenties, gets a job
working in a nuclear factory in Oklahoma. The pay is
good, and she soon makes friends with some of the
other people who work there, including Drew, who
becomes her boyfriend. The work is not difficult, and
it doesn’t seem to be dangerous – although she has
to be checked frequently by the scanner, to see if she
has any radioactive dust on her clothes.
But, one day, her friend Susan does get radioactive
dust on her, and Karen starts to worry about the
factory. She is elected to join the factory’s Union
Committee. There are more radioactive incidents.
Karen and some of the other committee members go
to Washington for a meeting with the Union leaders.
Karen explains that the management of the factory
are secretly changing photographs of the factory’s fuel
rods. These rods are dangerous, but the photographs
show that they are safe. One of the Union leaders
asks Karen to steal some of the photographs to prove
what is happening.
Karen starts to steal some negatives. She has
nearly enough of them, and the Union arrange a secret
meeting with a journalist from the New York Times.
But one day she arrives at work and finds that she is
already radioactive – before she goes into the factory.
It is then discovered that her house is radioactive
– especially some food in the fridge. Karen, her house,
and everything she owns, are all radioactive – but she
still has the negatives hidden.
The day of Karen’s meeting with the New York
Times journalist comes. Karen takes her negatives, in
a big brown envelope. On the way to the meeting her
car crashes, and she is killed – but nobody ever finds
the big brown envelope.
More than twenty years after her death a lot of
questions still remain unanswered.
The story underlines many of the problems that
have been associated with nuclear energy from its
very beginnings. Too many people have found it
difficult to believe that there really is danger: and this
is perhaps particularly the case where people have
their own jobs to protect. Many of Karen’s colleagues
knew there was danger, but continued to work in the
factory because there was no alternative. Perhaps the
same was true of the management – if they accepted
there was a problem, the factory might have to close
and they would lose their own jobs.
The Karen Silkwood story was one of the first to
show the American public the dangers that surrounded
the nuclear industry and those who worked in it.
These dangers were, of course, underlined by the near
meltdown at Three Mile Island some years later, and
then by the disastrous fire at Chernobyl.
Karen Silkwood’s last months were spent fighting a
management that did not want to admit the problems
it faced, and would do almost anything to protect
itself. Her story may be a lesson to other people, not
only in the nuclear industry, but in any industry where
people’s lives are at risk.

Background to the story

The Death of Karen Silkwood tells a true story which
happened in 1974, and has since been made into a
successful film. Nobody has ever been able to explain
why Karen’s car crashed that night, on the way to the
meeting, and of course it is impossible to prove that
the management of the factory were responsible.

41 © OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
 STAGE
The Death of Karen Silkwood
2 Pre-reading activity

Word search

S T O L E

G R X M T E F

A L A R M B E X F

Y O F F I C I A L

V V W T T S I P E

J E X B T X I R W

E I C T E S T N M U E

P N G O V E R N M E N T M N R N

U R A N I U M P S C A N N E R P A E S S S N V V

N O O B Y C H E C K K X Q T V J N W H X S Y E E

I O O E G L H Q U K L L A B O R A T O R Y X R L

O F Y E N E G A T I V E Q A T R G T W Z W P U O

N Y Y R N A Q P W O R R Y R E E E I E Z U L W P

F I J O U R N A L I S T P W K Q R X R T S A F E

To the teacher

Aim: To introduce key vocabulary flew, glove, government, journalist, laboratory,

Time: 10–15 minutes
Organization: Give one copy of the word search to
each student or put the word search on an overhead
projector. Give the students five minutes to find as
many words as possible.
Key: alarm, bar, beer, check, committee, envelope,
manager, negative, nuclear, official, proof, safe,
scanner, shower, stole, test, union, uranium, vote,
worry.
Finally, ask the students what sort of story might
contain these words and what they can guess about
the content of the book.

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 STAGE
The Death of Karen Silkwood
2 While reading activity

Order puzzle

Put these events in the right order.

EVENT ORdER

a A lot of people voted for Karen.

b Bob asked Karen to be on the Union Committee.

c Karen got a job at a nuclear factory.

d Karen started writing all the scanner alarms in a notebook.

e Karen went out for a pizza with Drew.

f Karen went to Washington.

g One of the Union leaders asked Karen to steal negatives.

h She met Drew in a coffee bar.

i She worked in a laboratory, putting uranium into fuel rods.

j Susan’s hands were ‘hot’ in the scanner.

k The alarm sounded when Karen was in front of the scanner.

l Two men showered Susan to remove the radioactive dust.

To the teacher

Where: At the end of Chapter 6
Aim: To ensure the beginning of the story is clearly
understood
Time: 10–15 minutes
Organization: Give each student (or group of
students) a copy of the summary of events in the
first six chapters and ask them to put the events in
the right order. Number the events 1–12.
Key: a8, b7, c1, d10, e4, f11, g12, h3, i2, j5, k9, l6

43 © OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS PHOTOCOPIABLE

 STAGE
The Death of Karen Silkwood
2 After reading activity

Characters and characteristics

CHARACTERISTICS KAREN DREW SuSAN MR BAILEY PETE PAuLA

afraid
angry
brave
calm
careful
careless
cold
dangerous
friendly
happy
helpful
‘hot’
kind
poor
pretty
stupid
tall
unfriendly
worried
young

To the teacher

Aim: To focus the students back on some of the main
characters in the book
Time: 15–20 minutes
Organization: Give each student, or each pair
of students, a grid. Across the top are some of
the main characters, and down the side a list of
characteristics. Ask the students to put a tick next to
the characteristic if they think it applies to the name.
There is not necessarily a correct answer to some of
these, although in some cases there are indications
in the text. You may need to check the meaning of
some of the words with the students before they do
the activity.

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