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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize the mutiny Augustus reports, then identify the single moment you find most central to the chapter's meaning. Explain what your choice reveals about Poe's method and about the kind of narrative this voyage is becoming.
Discussion Questions
- Poe lavishes detail on Dirk Peters's grotesque body and demon-like grin, then makes him the figure who preserves Augustus. How does Poe use the disjunction between Peters's monstrous appearance and his protective action, and why might he place the chapter's one sustained act of protection in that figure? Use details from the chapter.
- Within the mutiny, the cook is 'a perfect demon' who rises 'repeatedly' to renew the slaughter, while Dirk Peters and 'the less blood-thirsty' restrain him. Make the strongest case that such gradations of cruelty lessen the guilt of the gentler mutineers, then the strongest case that they do not, and explain why one judgment is the stronger. Use details from the chapter.
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Critical Thinking
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