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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the structural and emotional pivot of the chapter — and, arguably, of the novel. Jimbo, the chimpanzee who has been cast since Chapter 1 as thief, devil, and reward-currency, crosses the category boundary that has organized the whole summer's plot. He does not flee, does not fight, does not bargain: he climbs into the boy's arms and lays his head on his shoulder. Rawls composes the moment with remarkable restraint. Jay Berry's body answers (the 'lump' that 'crawled up in my throat'); his speech lags behind ('I started talking to him'). Copy the passage carefully and attend to the sequence — embrace BEFORE speech — because the chapter is arguing that some recognitions precede language.
Then he did something that almost paralyzed me. He shuffled over to me, caught hold of my overalls, climbed up into my arms, and laid his head on my shoulder. I swallowed a big lump that had crawled u...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize Chapter 15 aloud for a reader unfamiliar with the novel. Include the opening breakfast scene, Jay Berry and Rowdy's frustrated search through the storm-wrecked bottoms, the near-surrender on the sycamore log, the pitiful cry and the discovery of the huddled monkeys, the rescue of the sickest little monkey, Rowdy's warm-tongue kindness, Jimbo's decision to climb into Jay Berry's arms, the procession home, Mama's tea kettle, Daisy as the first family member to hold Jimbo, and Papa's concluding account of why the storm made the capture possible.
Discussion Questions
- Rawls constructs the chapter as a near-classical recognition scene: extended despair, ten-step turn, discovery, embrace, procession home. What dramatic tradition is the author working inside, consciously or unconsciously, and what does Rawls gain by letting the structure of tragic reversal serve a comic and redemptive plot?
- The sequence of trust-building is precise: Rowdy licks the sickest monkey, Jay Berry rubs the sickest monkey warm, and ONLY THEN does Jimbo come out from under the bank and climb into Jay Berry's arms. Rawls makes kindness toward the weakest party the necessary and sufficient precondition of trust from the strongest. Defend or challenge the moral rule this sequence enacts, and argue whether it holds in adult human life.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Rendered unable to move, act, or function, typically by shock, fear, or a sudden physical cause.
Item 2
Walked slowly and heavily, often dragging the feet without fully lifting them.
Item 3
Moved slowly on hands and knees, or — figuratively — rose or passed through gradually, as a feeling through the body.
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Critical Thinking
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