GRADE 8 PHASE 5

UNIT 1 THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR ACTIONS

Criteria B, C, D

DR HEIDEGGER’S EXPERIMENT
by Nathaniel Hawthorne

While reading the story answer the following questions. They appear in chronological order.

1. Analyse how the guests’ life choices had an impact on their well-being and their relationships.
2. Analyse how the description of Dr Heidegger’s room helps readers understand his character.
3. Explain how the four guests feel about Dr. Heidegger’s experiments. Justify your answers with
quotes from the text.
4. Explain what the rose symbolises in the story.
5. Analyse how the loss of Sylvia Ward might have affected Dr. Heidegger’s well- being.
6. Identify the literary device in the phrase "...as if the flower were walking from a deathlike sleep.”
7. “This is certainly a very pretty trick” said the doctor’s friends. What do you understand about the
relationship between the Doctor and his friends?
8. Analyse how the sentence “For my part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to
grow young again” contributes to our understanding of Dr. Heidegger’s character.
9. Dr. Heidegger advises his friends not to repeat the same mistakes of the past now that they have
been given a second chance. They have the choice to correct their mistakes and start afresh. Predict
whether they will not repeat them keeping in mind their prior lifestyles and choices. Hypothesise: If
yes, what will they do or repeat? If no, what will they do differently?
10. Identify a simile on page 6 and explain it.
11. Widow Wycherley can be characterised as vain. Define the word and explain why she is vain. Justify
your answer using quotes from the text.
12. When the doctor is asked for more water he immediately fills the glasses. Do you think that at that
point he acts as a friend or as a scientist using his friends as guinea pigs? Explain. What do you think
might be the consequences of his action?
14. Underline 3 adjectives that best describe the guests’ behaviour after they have drunk the water of
youth.
Scornful, greedy, mischievous, mature, insolent, playful, responsible, respectful. Justify your answer.
15. Go back to question 9. Were you right? Why or why not?
16. Identify a personification on page 6.Why is time important here?
17. What is the message [moral lesson] of the story?

BEYOND THE TEXT

Now that you have read the story answer the following questions using your own experience, knowledge
and the texts.

1. Conceptual— What types of consequences can people’s actions have?

2. Debatable— Do people always learn from the consequences of their actions?