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Copywork
About This Passage
Poe does not merely report the survivors' collapse; he pauses to defend it. After the wreck rolls over, the two men weep 'like children,' and the narrator anticipates the reader's judgment — that such weakness will 'appear unnatural' — only to answer it by explaining that 'privation and terror' had left them past reason. Copying this passage teaches the long, qualifying sentence that argues with the reader even as it confesses, showing how a narrator can both expose a shameful weakness and forestall contempt for it.
Our whole stock of provision had been swept overboard in spite of all our care in securing it; and seeing no longer the remotest possibility of obtaining more, we gave way both of us to despair, weepi...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: how the narrator and Peters care for their dying friend Augustus, whose wounded arm has mortified, until he dies; how they grieve in silence; how the wreck rolls completely over, hurling them into a shark-filled sea; how the capsize both feeds them (barnacles) and robs them of water; and how, after the longest suffering, the schooner Jane Guy turns toward them at last and saves them. Then choose the moment you find most decisive and explain why.
Discussion Questions
- Starving and parched themselves, the narrator and Peters give the dying Augustus three times his share of water and do 'every thing in our power for his comfort.' Explain what this care for a man who can give nothing back reveals about what still governs the two survivors at the edge of life, and whether it is best understood as duty, friendship, or mercy. Use details from the chapter.
- After the wreck rolls over, the narrator confesses that he and Peters wept 'aloud like children,' then pauses to insist that such weakness will only 'appear unnatural' to those who have not been similarly tried, since 'privation and terror' had left them past reason. Explain what Poe achieves by having the narrator both expose this collapse and defend it to the reader in the same breath. Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
The state of being about to happen; impending nearness.
Item 2
Thrown into confusion; deranged.
Item 3
Comfort offered in grief or distress.
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Critical Thinking
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