Question: What is the connotative meaning of the phrase “Corrupted by the present toy”?

Answer: easily distracted by the latest new thing

Question: What is the connotative meaning of “wears all coats” in this line from the poem?

Boy no more, he wears all coats,

Answer: Cupid can appear in many forms.

Question: Which lines most effectively use imagery in describing Cupid’s power to develop an admiring tone?

Select each correct answer.

Answer: “In the pit of his eye’s a spark

Would bring back day if it were dark;”

“In those unfathomable orbs

Every function he absorbs;”

Question: What does the imagery in these lines convey about Cupid’s character?

He is an augur and a priest,

And his soul will melt in prayer,

But word and wisdom is a snare;

Corrupted by the present toy

He follows joy, and only joy.

Answer: Cupid delights in deception.

Question: How does the imagery in these lines from the poem affect readers’ understanding of Cupid?

Leave his weeds and heed his eyes,—

All the rest he can disguise.

In the pit of his eye’s a spark

Would bring back day if it were dark;

Answer: It explains Cupid often lies and cannot be trusted.

Question: What is the author’s purpose for writing this passage?

Answer: to compare train travel in France to stagecoach travel in America

Question:

Answer: heaven

Question: Based on the imagery in this passage, what is Twain’s viewpoint regarding the people of France?

Answer: They aspire to perfection.

Question: How does the use of rhetorical questions in this excerpt advance the speaker’s purpose of persuading the judge to give a lighter sentence?

Answer: The rhetorical questions imply that a harsher sentence would only serve to make people crueler.

Question: What is the speaker’s viewpoint on childhood?

Answer: It is a time of unrealistic thinking.