Fantastic Mr. Fox — Chapter 3

About This Passage

This passage was chosen because it is the climactic moment of Chapter 3 and a masterclass in how to write suspense in very short sentences. Dahl delivers the discovery in five tightening stages — a glint, a speck, something moving, something coming up, a gun barrel — and only then allows the explosion. The passage contains four vocabulary words in context (glint, moonlight, barrel, polished) and introduces students to Dahl's signature use of exclamation marks, ellipsis, and onomatopoeia ('Bang-bang!') as structural devices rather than decoration.

Narration Prompt

In six or seven sentences, retell Chapter 3 in order: the domestic opening (Mrs Fox's request for two fat ducks and Mr Fox's reply that he can smell the three goons a mile away), the shift to the farmers' ambush (crouching downwind behind trees so they cannot be smelled), Mr Fox's slow cautious emergence from the hole, the rustling sound he dismisses as a field-mouse, the glint of moonlight on the barrel, his leap back, the three guns exploding, the discovery of his severed tail, and Bean's decision to get shovels and dig the family out.

Discussion Questions

1. Mr Fox tells Mrs Fox, 'Boggis gives off a filthy stink of rotten chicken-skins. Bunce reeks of goose-livers, and as for Bean, the fumes of apple cider hang around him like poisonous gases.' Why do you think Dahl has Mr Fox identify each farmer by smell, and what does this reveal about how Mr Fox understands the world compared to how the three farmers understand it?
2. In Chapter 2 we learned Mr Fox always approaches farms with the wind in his face. In Chapter 3 the farmers have positioned themselves so the wind blows AWAY from the fox's hole. What does this reversal show us about how enemies who watch each other long enough change each other, and why does this make Chapter 3 more frightening than any earlier moment in the book?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide