Summer of the Monkeys — Chapter 5

About This Passage

This passage was chosen because it is a perfect little portrait built entirely from comparisons. Rawls does not just say the professor was tall, thin, bearded, and wild-haired — he compares each part to something you can picture: a fence rail, a whalebone corset, a tool sharp enough to split a stump, the tail of a scared tomcat. A skilled writer learns here that good description works by likeness — a person is described by what they RESEMBLE, not by abstract adjectives. Notice that every comparison comes from the Ozark country: fence rails, stumps, tomcats. Jay Berry describes the world with the tools he has.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 5 in your own words, including Jay Berry's scared flight through the briers, Papa's response to his torn clothes and strange story, the empty bottoms when Papa comes to look, Mama and Daisy's reaction at home, Grandpa's butterfly-net plan with the blue and yellow rings, and the long tale of the butterfly professor.

Discussion Questions

1. At first, Papa thinks Jay Berry is 'just imagining things' — he says plainly that monkeys cannot talk to each other. Then Papa listens to the whole story and decides to walk into the bottoms to see for himself. What in the story tells you what FINALLY changes Papa's mind? Is it Jay Berry's certainty, the torn clothes, or something else Papa sees?
2. When Papa and Jay Berry get to the bottoms, every monkey has vanished. Not a tail, not a limb, not a branch moving. Rawls writes, 'We listened and listened, but all we could hear was the droning tones of the noise we had made die away in the thick timber.' What does it mean for the story that the big monkey SEEMS to know Papa is there? What is Rawls hinting about the monkey's intelligence?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide