Preview
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Before taking up the questions, retell the chapter's single morning in your own words: where the ax is headed when Fern first asks about it, how the argument in the wet grass ends, what condition Mr. Arable attaches when he gives in, and how the pig has gained a bottle, a place at the table, and a name by the time Fern reaches school. Keep the order of reversals straight; the morning turns more than once.
Discussion Questions
- Mrs. Arable explains the ax in softened words: the runt "will never amount to anything," so Fern's father "has decided to do away with it." Her sharpest correction is about volume: "Don't yell, Fern!" Fern translates the soft phrase at once: "You mean kill it? Just because it's smaller than the others?" Why do mother and daughter need such different words for the same act, and what does each way of speaking let its speaker keep believing about what is happening in the hoghouse? Build your answer from the exact phrases of the breakfast-table dialogue.
- When Fern asks whether her father would have killed her if she had been born very small, Mr. Arable smiles and draws a line: "A little girl is one thing, a little runty pig is another." Fern answers, "I see no difference," and a moment later "a queer look" comes over his face and he seems "almost ready to cry himself." Her sobbing did not move him, and her pulling at the ax did not move him. Why does her refusal to see his difference reach him when tears and force could not? Trace his words and reactions across the scene, from "you will have to learn to control yourself" to the queer look, and explain what "I see no difference" changes.
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Critical Thinking
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