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Copywork
About This Passage
In the midst of telling delightful stories, Sara is ambushed by grief for her absent father, and Burnett records the moment with extraordinary physical precision. We watch the cloud cross her face, the sharply drawn breath that makes 'a funny, sad little sound,' and the deliberate closing of her lips, as if she were 'determined either to do or not to do something.' The final contrast, that an ordinary child would have burst into sobs but Sara did not, exposes the iron self-mastery beneath her brightness. Copying this passage lets a student study how an author can render an inner struggle entirely through observed gesture, and how syntax can hold a feeling in check just as the character does.
Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily, Ermengarde saw her face suddenly change. A cloud seemed to pass over it and put out the light in her shining eyes. She drew her breath in...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary of the chapter, then identify the single most consequential moment in it and explain why it matters to the chapter as a whole and what it reveals about Burnett's larger design.
Discussion Questions
- What do Sara's treatment of Ermengarde and her quiet speech about her father reveal when you read them side by side, and what larger claim about her character does the chapter invite you to make? Defend your reading with details from the chapter.
- These events are outwardly small: a friendship begins, a doll is admired, and grief is spoken quietly. What work do these scenes actually do in the chapter, and why, if at all, does Burnett earn the space she gives them? Defend your view with details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Calling out for sympathy or attention in a way that moves others.
Item 2
In a forlorn, comfortless, deeply unhappy way.
Item 3
As a result; therefore.
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Critical Thinking
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