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Copywork
About This Passage
A textbook example of dramatic irony — the device by which the reader is given information the characters lack. Kate DiCamillo uses parallel structure ('so busy... did not hear... so busy... did not hear') to put the same shape under two different objects (creak, moan), creating a small rhetorical pattern that the next chapter will break.
Mr. Watson and Mrs. Watson and Mercy were all so busy sleeping that they did not hear the bed creak. They were all so busy dreaming that they did not hear the floor moan.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter, then explain what you think the author most wanted the reader to notice or feel. What techniques did the author use to push you toward that response?
Discussion Questions
- Kate DiCamillo dedicates an entire chapter to the dreams of three sleeping characters. She could have skipped this chapter entirely. What is the rhetorical FUNCTION of a dreams-only chapter inside a children's book? What does the chapter accomplish that no plot-action could?
- Each dream is a portrait of its dreamer. Mr. Watson dreams of driving fast — a fantasy he cannot live in waking life. Mrs. Watson dreams of feeding Mercy — what she ALREADY does in waking life. Mercy dreams of being fed by Mrs. Watson — also what she already lives. What does it mean that two of the three sleepers dream their actual lives, and one dreams something he does not have?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
experiencing involuntary images and narratives during sleep — used by writers as a window into the unconscious
Item 2
a low, scraping sound; here, a structural warning that the characters fail to register
Item 3
a long, low sound of complaint or strain; deployed onto an inanimate floor as personification
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Critical Thinking
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