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Copywork
About This Passage
Four sentences enact a small Aristotelian event: a creature weighs two goods against each other and chooses. Kate DiCamillo grants Mercy the narrowing of eyes (the visible sign of interior weighing), the recognition of competing loves, and the slow physical motion that follows a deliberate choice. This is bouleusis — rational deliberation — performed by a pig.
Mercy narrowed her eyes. She loved hot buttered toast. She also loved extra helpings. Slowly, very slowly, she moved over to the passenger side.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary, then identify the most important moment and explain why it matters to the book.
Discussion Questions
- Force does not move Mercy; persuasion does. Plato in the Gorgias distinguishes peitho (persuasion) from bia (force) and argues that the better life is built on the first. Is Kate DiCamillo's domestic version of the same distinction working at the same level as Plato's political one?
- Mercy 'narrows her eyes' and weighs two goods (toast vs. extra helpings) before moving. Aristotle distinguishes orexis (appetite) from bouleusis (rational deliberation). Is Kate DiCamillo granting Mercy something closer to bouleusis than to mere orexis?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Aristotle's term for rational deliberation — the weighing of options
Item 2
Aristotle's term for appetite or desire
Item 3
Plato's term for persuasion — moving through reason rather than force
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Critical Thinking
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