Mercy Watson to the Rescue — Chapter 6

About This Passage

Kate DiCamillo stages the chapter's whole moral content in a single image: a woman insisting she is never wrong, pressed face-to-face with the very creature she is wrong about. The closing two sentences ('Mercy stared at Eugenia. Eugenia stared at Mercy.') deploy strict parallel structure to flatten the species hierarchy Eugenia is asserting. The grammar contradicts the speaker; the writer does not need to.

Narration Prompt

Give a concise summary, then identify the single most important sentence in the chapter and explain why it matters to the book as a whole.

Discussion Questions

1. Eugenia insists 'I am never wrong' while being demonstrably wrong about almost every claim she makes in the chapter. Aristotle distinguishes the proud man (rightly self-confident) from the vain man (wrongly so). Where does Eugenia sit, and what does Kate DiCamillo think of her placement?
2. Baby Lincoln has stayed publicly silent through every error of her sister's — until Eugenia threatens to hurt Mercy's feelings. The line of Baby's silence is cruelty. Augustine writes that the obligation to bear public witness becomes binding only when love is at stake. Is Baby's silence Augustinian, or is it something else?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide