The Cricket in Times Square — Chapter 2

About This Passage

Two consecutive paragraphs: the first a virtuosic description of the cricket's chirp through three escalating similes; the second a quiet flashback that personalizes the sound by tethering it to a specific memory on Long Island. The copywork asks students to transcribe both together so the author's craft — the move from abstract comparison to biographical anchor — becomes visible in the hand as well as the eye. Selden's progression demonstrates how a gifted author can define a sensory impression first through lyrical comparison and then through concrete autobiography, with the transition itself (from 'midnight through the darkness into a thicket' to 'Mario thought he knew what it was') performing the collapse from myth into memory.

Narration Prompt

Produce an oral or written account of the chapter's architecture. Track four movements: the solitary sensory event (Mario hearing the sound); the search and discovery (uncovering the cricket); the domestic negotiation (the family scene); and the coda (the closing 'almost feel'). What does each movement contribute to the book's emerging moral and aesthetic project?

Discussion Questions

1. Selden employs what we might call a 'hierarchy of metaphor' in his description of the cricket's chirp — violin, harp, falling leaf in a midnight forest. Read this hierarchy not as mere ornament but as argument. What claim is Selden making about the relationship between urban noise and pastoral delicacy, and how does the grammar of the paragraph (similes chained, then a conditional, then a flashback) enact that claim?
2. The cleaning sequence — Kleenex, soft taps on shell, antennae, legs, wings — is written with an attention to physical particularity that exceeds the plot's demand. Defend the position that this passage is the ethical center of the chapter. What is Selden teaching about the relationship between specificity of observation and moral regard?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide