Preview
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize the chapter's arc, then identify the central tension Poe develops. What in the chapter makes that tension feel important, and does Poe handle it honestly and effectively?
Discussion Questions
- Trapped and exploring with Peters, Pym abandons the idiom of fear for exact measurement, recording figures of the chasms in a pocket-book he kept through later adventures. What does Poe gain by making his narrator a meticulous surveyor at the moment of greatest strangeness, and why might that precision unsettle a reader more than open dread would? Use specific details from the descriptions to defend your reading.
- Peters reads the marks in the marl as alphabetical characters; Pym withholds assent until he tests them against the broken flakes that fit the indentures. Does the chapter present Pym's method as the better way to meet the unknown, or does it leave room to value Peters's readier imagination? Use the marl evidence to defend your view.
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Critical Thinking
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