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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the chapter's architecture: the convalescence aboard the Jane Guy and the 'partial oblivion' that overtakes the survivors, the near-fatal squall off the Cape of Good Hope, the landfall at deceptive Kerguelen, or Desolation Island, and the extended naturalist's study of the royal penguins and the rigorously ordered rookery. Locate the seam where romance gives way to documentary observation, and consider what the modulation accomplishes.
Discussion Questions
- On Kerguelen Land, surveying the rookery, the narrator declares 'nothing can be more astonishing than the spirit of reflection evinced by these feathered beings,' a faculty fit to 'elicit reflection in every well-regulated human intellect.' What claim about the relation of instinct to reason does Poe press through this language, and how does the chapter's diction argue it? Use details from the chapter.
- On Kerguelen Land Poe suspends the narrative to itemize the ideal sealing vessel, the navigational track, and the rookery's architecture with the impassive authority of a gazetteer. What might this documentary rhetoric accomplish within a romance of mutiny and miracle, and why might Poe court the appearance of fact? Use details from the chapter.
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Critical Thinking
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