The Adventures of Pinocchio — Chapter 35

About This Passage

This exchange is the moral hinge of the entire book. Geppetto, who has spent a lifetime as the maker, names his limit — 'I do not know how to swim' — and Pinocchio, the made, answers with both pragmatism ('You can get on my back') and a strikingly mature philosophical claim ('we shall have the consolation of dying together'). The roles inherited from chapter three are formally inverted: the father is led by the son, who carries both the candle and the plan. Copying this passage trains attention to the way Collodi places ethical reversal inside ordinary domestic dialogue rather than in declamatory rhetoric — and to the formal placement of 'consolation,' a word that has carried Stoic weight since Cicero, in the mouth of a wooden child.

Narration Prompt

Retell chapter 35 from Pinocchio's parting with the Tunny to the moonlit swim with Geppetto on his back, foregrounding the formal architecture of the chapter — the journey toward light, the candlelit table, the long confessional speech, the failed comic escape, and the closing tableau on the resplendent sea.

Discussion Questions

1. Pinocchio's recapitulation of his entire history — marionettes, Fox and Cat, assassins, lying nose, buried gold, dog-collar, Serpent, Dove — is one of the longest single speeches in the book and is delivered without excuse or commentary. What is the rhetorical genre of this speech, and why does Collodi place a comprehensive autobiography here rather than allowing the reunion to proceed on the strength of feeling alone?
2. The chapter opens its narrative center with a tableau — a candlelit table set with preserved meat, figs, biscuits, wine, raisins, coffee, and sugar — inside the belly of a sea monster. How does the disjunction between the domestic furnishing and the gothic setting function thematically? What claim is being made about Geppetto's character through the mise-en-scène rather than through dialogue?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide