The Adventures of Pinocchio — Chapter 9

About This Passage

Collodi packs the entire moral architecture of the chapter into one sentence. ‘Wild with curiosity’ names the appetite; ‘forgetting all his good resolutions’ names what the appetite costs; ‘shamelessly’ names how curiosity has unlearned the heart’s good manners. Pinocchio does not lose his promises by accident — the chapter shows that strong wanting actively forgets what it does not want to remember. Notice how the comma after ‘curiosity’ forces a tiny pause, as though even the sentence is reluctant to admit what comes next.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 9 in your own words. Be sure to include: the gold-and-silver suit Pinocchio imagined for Geppetto, the music that pulled him off the school road, what he tried to sell for the four pennies, and the chapter’s closing image of Geppetto trembling at home.

Discussion Questions

1. Pinocchio walks to school imagining a gold-and-silver suit with buttons of jewels for Geppetto. What does Collodi want us to feel about Pinocchio’s love for his father at the start of the chapter — and why does he start the chapter this way before showing what Pinocchio actually does?
2. Pinocchio tells himself, ‘To-day I will go and hear the fife and drum, and to-morrow I will go to school. There is always time to go there.’ What lie is hidden inside the sentence ‘there is always time’? How does the rest of the book (or your own life) prove this lie wrong?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide