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Copywork
About This Passage
Burnett uses short, drumming sentences and piled-up sensory words — darkness, wind, rain, rushing water, bleak moor, black ocean — to create the feeling of a journey that refuses to end. Copying trains the hand and ear to notice how sentence rhythm builds suspense.
On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped, the wind rushed by and whistled and made strange sounds. The road went up and down, and several times the carriage passed over a...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Narrate the chapter as a journey: from waking in the train to Thwaite Station, the carriage ride across the dark Missel Moor, Mary's first real questions to Mrs. Medlock, the stop at Misselthwaite Manor with its iron-studded door, Mr. Pitcher's message, and the long walk through corridors to her small lit room.
Discussion Questions
- Mary asks Mrs. Medlock, 'What is a moor?' This is the first time in the novel that Mary has asked a question because she wanted to know something, not because she wanted to command someone. What in the chapter explains the change?
- When Mrs. Medlock describes the moor — 'miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom' — Mary replies, 'I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it.' Analyze what Mary's comparison reveals about her imagination.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
The condition of having no light, especially at night or in a shut-up place.
Item 2
A covered wheeled vehicle pulled by horses, used to carry people along a road.
Item 3
Cold, empty, and unwelcoming in appearance.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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