The Lady and the Spider by Robert Fulghum Review

1. What is a fact? A statement that can be proved.

2. What is an opinion? A judgment that can be supported but not proved.

3. What resources can you use to check facts? Dictionaries Encyclopedias Reliable Web sites

4. What is tone? The writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject.

5. What factors contribute to tone? Word choice, sentence structure, and sentence length Characteristics such as the use of complex sentences, sentence fragments, contractions, scientific vocabulary, or slang describe tone. Ex. If you plan ahead, I promise you, you’ll have the best party ever! (Notice how word choice can create a friendly tone.)

6. What does the lady do with her baggage? She flings her baggage everywhere.

7. What do her actions show about her feelings toward spiders? They show she is terrified of spiders.

8. What are some thoughts the woman has about the situation? She thinks about where the spider is, about getting it off her, and that the spider is about the size of a lobster and has big rubber lips and poisonous fangs.

9. What are some thoughts the spider has about the situation? All of a sudden—earthquake, tornado, volcano. A huge piece of raw-but-painted meat is making a sound the spider never heard before. Jump in? Hang on and hope? Dig in? She wonders where the human is going and what it will do when it gets there.

10. Why does the narrator tell what both the lady and the spider are thinking? Hearing what both the spider and the woman are thinking makes the woman’s behavior seem exaggerated and even funnier and makes the spider’s unusual view of the situation seem more reasonable.

11. How does the author feel about spiders? How do you know? The author thinks spiders are amazing. He describes how long they’ve been around, their number, and how they make webs.

12. List two details about the lady’s fear that the narrator presents as facts. She flings her bags and clutches her face and hair.

13. List two details about the lady’s fear that the narrator presents as opinions. Her scream is “about the level of a fire engine at full cry” and she “thinks the spider is about the size of a lobster.”

14. What are two facts from the essay that you could prove true or false by checking on the Internet? Spiders have been around for about 350 million years. There are sixty or seventy thousand spiders per suburban acre.

15. Describe the tone of “The Lady and the Spider.” The tone is humorous and informal.

16. Why does Robert Fulghum describe the song “Eensy, Weensy Spider” in this essay? To make a point that spiders can teach us an important lesson to keep going and never give up.

17. How does Robert Fulghum make his essay funny? He uses exaggeration such as describing the lady’s scream at about the level of a fire engine at full cry or the spider having rubber lips. He uses the point of view of the spider to describe the woman. She flings her baggage in all directions. And at the same time does a high-kick, jitterbug sort of dance—like a mating stork in crazed heat. The web is torn loose and is wrapped around a frenzied haystack, and a huge piece of raw-but-painted meat is making a sound the spider never heard before.

17. continued The author also describes the spider as if it were human. Ordinary, middle-aged lady spider that has been up since before dawn working on her web and thinking about the little gnats she’d like to have for breakfast. He considers what it would be like if people were equipped like spiders. With the little six-nozzled aperture at the base of the spine, humans could make something like glass fiber to wrap packages, to mountain climb, and to compete in Olympic events.

17. continued He uses repetition to mention the woman’s scream: “AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!”

18. Mode Way of doing something Please study for your test!

19. Frenzied Acting in a wild, uncontrolled way

20. Inhabited Lived in; occupied