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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter's most elaborate visual description, and Collodi places it just before the master begins to brag about how he tamed Pinocchio with the whip. The brass buckles, the white camellias, the curls in silk, the gold and silver band, the ribbon-laced tail — every detail makes the donkey more decorated and less his own. Notice how Collodi piles ornament after ornament until the word "gorgeous" finally lands. Copying this passage trains the hand to feel a long list of small details accumulating into a single sad picture: a creature whose value to others is now its costume.
He had a new bridle of shining leather with buckles of polished brass; two white camellias tied to his ears; his mane divided in many curls tied with red silk; a large band of gold and silver tied aro...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the chapter from the moment the driver kicks the door open to the moment the buyer sits down to wait for Pinocchio to drown. Be sure to include the sale at the square, the narrator's question to the reader ("do you understand what the trade of the driver was?"), the stall, the three months of training, the Grand Entertainment, the Fairy in the audience, the slip, and the second sale.
Discussion Questions
- The narrator stops the action and asks the reader directly, "And now, my little readers, do you understand what the trade of the driver was?" Examine why Collodi pauses to ask this question rather than simply telling the reader. What does the question force the reader to do, and what does that activity teach?
- The master describes his cruelty as "the dialect of the whip" and frames his teaching as a learned skill. Examine the way the master's polished public speech uses fine words to dress up brutal facts. What does Collodi want the reader to notice about the relationship between fine language and cruel treatment?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
the leather straps fitted around a horse or donkey's head to control it; the driver bridles Pinocchio after the transformation, and the new master gives him a bridle of shining leather for the show.
Item 2
a kind of large, showy white or pink flower native to East Asia and prized in nineteenth-century European costume and decoration; two of them are tied to Pinocchio's ears for his stage appearance.
Item 3
very richly colored or decorated, splendid in appearance; Collodi calls Pinocchio "the most gorgeous donkey that ever was seen," using the praise word ironically because the gorgeousness disguises the cruelty.
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Critical Thinking
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