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Copywork
About This Passage
Poe builds a catalog of doom in three parallel clauses divided by semicolons, each disaster bleaker than the last. Copying it teaches how parallel structure and rising imagery create a mood, and how a writer can make horror sound almost like longing.
My visions were of shipwreck and famine; of death or captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean unapproachable and u...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter, then identify the moment when the voyage stops feeling exciting and begins to feel dangerous. What in the chapter makes that turning point clear?
Discussion Questions
- Gordon says his visions of 'shipwreck and famine' felt less like fears than like 'desires.' Why does he describe himself that way, and does this chapter give you reason to trust that explanation or to question it? Use details from the chapter.
- Gordon condemns his own 'intense hypocrisy,' yet he tells the story with striking energy and detail. How does that tension change the way you trust him as a narrator, and why? Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Beginning to develop; in an early stage.
Item 2
Things invented to deceive; made-up stories.
Item 3
In a way that is claimed or appears true, though it may not be.
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Critical Thinking
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