The Adventures of Pinocchio — Chapter 22

About This Passage

Pinocchio says this to the farmer the morning after refusing the Polecats' bribe — a precise, almost legalistic self-description. Copying this passage trains a middle-school reader to feel how moral self-knowledge can sound when it is finally true. Pinocchio admits he has 'all the vices of marionettes' (one of the most honest things he has ever said about himself) and in the same sentence draws a line he will not cross.

Narration Prompt

Read Chapter 22 as a midnight moral test that arrives the very night after Pinocchio's confession in the dog house. Argue what shifts in Pinocchio between his pretended 'Very well' to the Polecats, his trick with the door and stone, and his final refusal to accuse Bruno.

Discussion Questions

1. The Polecats arrive expecting Pinocchio to take Bruno's old deal — they had a long-running corrupt agreement with the dead dog. Argue what Collodi accomplishes by revealing Bruno's secret only after Bruno is dead. Why is it morally important that Pinocchio learns about Bruno's failure at the moment he himself is being offered the same temptation?
2. Pinocchio says 'Very well' to the Polecats while shaking his head as if to say 'In a little while we will talk about this again.' Argue whether this is the same kind of lying that has made Pinocchio's nose grow earlier in the novel. What is Collodi distinguishing between, and what does it mean that Pinocchio's nose does not grow here?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide