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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter's rhetorical climax, where Poe stages the explosion as a slow sequence of shocks. It rewards copying for the anaphoric 'then... then... then... and, lastly,' that stretches one instant into mounting stages, and for the periodic final clause whose long delay lands on 'the concussion in its fullest fury.' The catalog 'wood, and metal, and human limbs' fuses the mechanical and the human into a single horror.
They were upon the point of recommencing, when suddenly a mass of smoke puffed up from the decks, resembling a black and heavy thunder-cloud—then, as if from its bowels, arose a tall stream of vivid f...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary of the chapter, then identify the single most important moment and explain why it matters to the book as a whole. What in the chapter makes that moment carry the most weight?
Discussion Questions
- If you had to state the Central One Idea of this chapter in one sentence, what would it be? Explain how the chapter's sequence of events leads you there, and use specific details, such as the destruction of the Jane, to defend why that idea carries the most weight.
- Pym and Peters suppress every impulse to warn or aid the Jane, deciding by calculation rather than feeling. Does the chapter present this detachment as wisdom, as moral failure, or as something the situation compels? Use the details of the men's reasoning and the chapter's outcome to develop your reading of why they choose detachment.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
To survey or scout an area in order to gather information, especially about danger.
Item 2
With sudden, violent, rushing force.
Item 3
Lowered oneself to act, as if it were beneath one's dignity.
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Critical Thinking
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