The Adventures of Pinocchio — Chapter 6

Narration Prompt

Summarize Chapter 6 in five or six sentences for an adult reading partner who has read the chapter once but not closely. Your summary should name at least three architectural choices Collodi makes — for example, the opening storm, the piled-clause description of the town, the doubled “but,” the off-stage closing voice.

Discussion Questions

1. “His hunger was greater than his fear.” Discuss this sentence as the philosophical hinge of Pinocchio’s development. Once the body overrules caution, what becomes possible — and what becomes inevitable — in the moral life of a child? Where in your own pedagogical or parental experience does this hinge appear?
2. The old man in the nightcap mistakes Pinocchio for a prankster and pours a bucket of water on him. Collodi presents the misjudgment with sympathy: the man is weary, the cause is plausible, the cruelty is real. Discuss what this scene asks us to hold about adults who refuse the child in front of them because of children they have already met.

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide