Preview
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: how the friends fail to force the locked store-room and bring up only a bottle of wine, how the wine comforts and then deranges them while the narrator stays clear, how he chews leather and revives the others by plunging them in the sea, how a second ship bears down and then turns away, and how Parker, at the end, proposes that one of them die so the others may live. Then name the moment you find most decisive and defend your choice.
Discussion Questions
- The bottle of port-wine first brings the friends 'indescribable comfort,' yet on their empty stomachs it soon drives Peters, Parker, and Augustus into a violent delirium, while the narrator is spared. Explain what Poe suggests about help received in extremity when the same gift brings both comfort and danger. Use details from the chapter.
- When the second ship steers away after seeming to bear straight down on them, Augustus refuses to accept the loss, mistaking floating sea-weed for the ship's boat and trying to cast himself upon it. What does Augustus's delusion suggest about the mind under repeated disappointment, and why might he break where the narrator does not? Use details from the chapter.
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Critical Thinking
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