The Adventures of Pinocchio — Chapter 17

About This Passage

This is the chapter's portrait of stalling — indulgent patience meeting endless excuse, with each excuse smaller than the last. Copying it teaches you how Collodi paces the back-and-forth of avoidance and how a writer uses small physical details (a pillow, a half-open door) to map the psychology of a child trying not to do the thing he must. The passage contains the vocabulary words indulgent, marionette, and grimaces.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 17 in seven or eight sentences. Include the Fairy's bitter medicine, Pinocchio's three stalling excuses (sugar, pillow, door), the four black Rabbits with the coffin, the cure, the Fairy's request for the story of the assassins, and Pinocchio's three lies about the gold pieces with the matching three growths of his nose.

Discussion Questions

1. The Fairy reacts to Pinocchio's stalling 'with the patience of an indulgent mamma,' fixing every excuse he invents (sugar, more sugar, pillow, door). What in the story makes you think Collodi is showing patience as a kind of strength rather than weakness? How can you tell the Fairy is not being fooled — she is choosing not to argue?
2. When Pinocchio finally says, 'I would rather die than take that bad medicine,' the four black Rabbits with a coffin walk in immediately. What in the chapter shows you the timing is too perfect to be an accident? How do you know the Rabbits are part of the Fairy's teaching, not random visitors from another world?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide