Penny in the Dust

Penny in the Dust

1. A flashback is a moment in time when you remember something that happened to you a while ago. Besides the first couple of sentences, the whole story is a flashback. It starts when they say “do you remember the afternoon we thought you were lost?”
2. The conflict is between Peter and his father. The conflict is that he lost his penny and doesn’t want to tell his dad. It is resolved by his dad finding the penny and telling him I wouldn’t have beat you if you had told me you had lost it. Peter explains to his dad how he lost the penny.
Questions
1. Peter feels that way because his dad entrusted him with the penny and he lost it. He feels bad that he never told his dad. His dad did not know he was so afraid of him and what he would do. He was hurt that he could not tell him what happened.
2. His father never returned the penny because he did not want Peter to keep imagining the things that they could not have. The automobile for example.
3. Father shows his love by giving him a penny. He went looking for him when he thought he was lost. He went out to help Peter look for the penny. He put his arm around Peter and had tears in his eyes after he told him what he was pretending to do with penny.
4. The father feels awkward and out of place in the boy’s world because he can’t relate to anything the boy feeling or doing. The boy feels like his world is foolish and fragile and that him and his dad can’t get close because of it.
5. What made the dad put his arm around Peter and have tears in his eyes was the fact that everything the boy imagined the father couldn’t give.
6. The penny is symbolic. It brings the boy and his dad a little closer. It is symbolic of what he can’t have.
7. The father has trouble showing emotion. It is hard to tell when he is showing emotion. He is a hard worker. The father keeps to himself. You can tell by the father’s actions that he really truly does care about the boy in his own way. The father wants to give Peter as much as he can imagine, but he cannot afford it.