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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter’s climax of strangeness, and a small masterpiece of careful description. Poe refuses easy words: the water is ‘not colorless, nor of any one uniform color,’ but shifts through ‘every possible shade of purple, like the hues of a changeable silk.’ Then he ties this wonder to the islanders by saying it astonished the crew exactly as the mirror had astonished Too-wit. Finally he turns scientist, settling a basinful to reveal ‘distinct veins, each of a distinct hue,’ that will not mix. Copying it shows how Poe makes the impossible believable through patient, exact observation, and how comparing the crew’s amazement to Too-wit’s quietly places both peoples on the same human footing before the unknown.
It was not colorless, nor was it of any one uniform color—presenting to the eye, as it flowed, every possible shade of purple, like the hues of a changeable silk. This variation in shade was produced ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in order: how the ship sails on through a warm sea pulled toward the pole and the crew finds a strange white animal; how it reaches wooded islands where Too-wit and his people paddle out; how the islanders come aboard amazed — believing the Jane is alive, treating the guns as idols, and recoiling in terror when Too-wit sees himself in a mirror; how they prove friendly yet avoid white things like the sails and an egg; how the narrator, 'bent on prosecuting the voyage,' persuades Captain Guy to stay only briefly; and how, ashore, the crew finds a land utterly strange, ending with water that flows in separate purple veins. Pause where the chapter most unsettles your sense of what is possible, and explain why.
Discussion Questions
- At the first meeting near Too-wit's islands, both sides are astonished — the islanders by the Jane and her guns, the crew by the islanders' reactions. What might Poe gain by letting wonder run in both directions, and why? Use details from the chapter.
- Too-wit's people welcome the crew warmly, yet they also shrink from white skin and avoid white things like the sails, an egg, and a pan of flour. How might those two responses fit together, and why might both be true of the same people? Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Close, careful examination.
Item 2
Showed or revealed clearly.
Item 3
To draw back suddenly in fear or disgust.
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Critical Thinking
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