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Copywork
About This Passage
The narrator pauses before the chapter's worst moment to confess how its memory will 'embitter every future moment of my existence,' and asks leave to pass over it 'with as much haste' as he can. Copying these two sentences shows how Poe marks a horror too great to describe through the narrator's own reluctance, letting the reader feel its weight without being shown the worst.
It is with extreme reluctance that I dwell upon the appalling scene which ensued; a scene which, with its minutest details, no after-events have been able to efface in the slightest degree from my mem...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: how the narrator resolves to die rather than take part in the terrible plan and tries to dissuade Parker; how the others insist and the four draw lots, and Parker is the one chosen to die so the rest may live; how, days later, the narrator remembers an axe Peters had passed him; how the friends cut down to the store-room for olives, ham, and wine; and how they bring up a tortoise full of sweet water and give thanks to God. Then choose the moment you find most decisive and explain why.
Discussion Questions
- Parker argues that one should die so the rest may live, while the narrator resolves to 'suffer death... rather than resort to such a course' and pleads with Parker to give up the idea. Explain why the two men reach such opposite conclusions in the same desperate situation. Use details from the chapter.
- The narrator says it is 'with extreme reluctance' that he tells of the lottery, and dwells on his own terror as he arranges the lots. Explain what Poe shows about the narrator by lingering on his dread and his attempts to delay, rather than hurrying past the scene. Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Unwillingness; holding back from doing something.
Item 2
A shockingly cruel or wicked act.
Item 3
Great weakness of the body.
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Critical Thinking
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