Do they help explain his character or motivation?ġ1. Two of the final chapters are told from Claude's point of view. Which kind of reader were you? What is the nature of the poison? When the man and the old herbalist argue in the prologue, who did you think was right?ġ0.
Some readers forget entirely about the poison that makes its appearance in the prologue others never lose track of it. How would Edgar's story have been different if he had been born with a voice? How would Edgar himself have been different? Since Edgar can communicate perfectly well in sign language most of the time, why should having a voice make any difference at all?ĩ. Do Edgar's own dog-training techniques and methods change over the course of the story? If so, how? Do different methods of dog training represent a trade-off of some kind, or are certain methods simply better? Would it be more or less difficult to train a breed of dogs that had been selected for many generations for their intellect?Ĩ.
How many ghosts, both literal and figurative, are in this story? In what ways are the ghosts alike? Who is haunted, and by whom?ħ.
Haunting is a prominent motif in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. What is it about Henry that makes him fit? Would it have been better if Edgar had placed the dogs with someone more experienced? Why doesn't Edgar simply insist that all the dogs return home with him?Ħ. At first glance, Henry Lamb seems an unlikely caretaker for a pair of Sawtelle dogs, yet Edgar feels that Tinder and Baboo will be safe with him. How does Almondine's way of seeing the world differ from the human characters in this story? Does Essay's perception (which we can only infer) differ from Almondine's? Assuming that both dogs are examples of what John Sawtelle dubbed canis posterus, "the next dogs," what specifically can they do that other dogs cannot?ĥ. What does he want and when did he start wanting it? What is his modus operandi? Would his methods work in the real world, or is such behavior merely a convenient trope of fiction?Ĥ. Claude is a mysterious presence in this story. How does this manifest itself? What is the "wildest" element in the story? What is the most "domestic"?ģ. In one of Edgar's favorite passages from The Jungle Book, Bagheera tells Mowgli that he was once a caged animal, until "one night I felt that I was Bagheera-the Panther-and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my paw and came away." There is a dialectic in Edgar's story that is similarly concerned with the ideas of wildness and domestication. What does that reveal about Edgar's character or his state of mind? Do you think he might have made a different decision earlier in the story?Ģ. Yet when Trudy finally offers to tell him, he decides he'd rather not know. In fact, Edgar is an inveterate snoop about it. One of the abiding mysteries in Edgar's life concerns how his parents met.
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