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Copywork
About This Passage
This sentence sets the frozen narrator against Peters's quick action: while the narrator can 'do nothing,' Peters runs and seizes the bird that becomes their food. It is worth copying for the strong verbs 'run' and 'seize' and the comma that turns one man's fear into the other's deed.
I was so much startled that I could do nothing, but Peters had sufficient presence of mind to run up to it before it could make its escape, and seize it by the neck.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell the story of this chapter in order. Start with Pym and Peters hiding, then tell what happens to the Jane, what the men find to eat, and what makes the savages run away screaming at the end. Slow down at the part you think matters most.
Discussion Questions
- Pym and Peters want to help their friends on the Jane, but they stay hidden instead of firing the pistol. Do you think that was the wisest choice they could make? Use the chapter's words about what firing would and would not do to explain.
- After the savages burn the Jane, the chapter says the explosion gave them 'the full and perfect fruits of their treachery.' What do you think the chapter means by calling their destruction the 'fruits' of what they did? Use the chapter's words about the attack and the explosion to explain.
+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary
Item 1
Being held as a prisoner, not free to leave.
Item 2
To hide something so it cannot be seen.
Item 3
A betrayal of trust through a hidden, harmful plan.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 4 more questions in the complete study guide
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