What happened to Jody's father ?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 2: he was bitten by a rattlesnake.

This question refers to the narrative context of the story "This is Jody's Fawn." The central conflict that sets the story in motion is the life-threatening incident involving Jody's father, Penny. Penny was seriously injured by the venomous bite of a rattlesnake. In the wild, a rattlesnake bite delivers potent venom that can quickly lead to death if not treated immediately. To save his life, Penny and Jody performed a desperate, but necessary, action: they killed a doe (a female deer) and used its heart and liver to draw out the poison. This traditional, immediate remedy was crucial in neutralizing the venom and allowing Penny to survive. It is the urgent need to address the snake bite that forces the central dilemma of the story: the fawn, whose mother (the doe) was killed to save Penny, is now orphaned, and Jody feels responsible for its life, prompting his journey to find it.

The incorrect option is 1: he was attacked by a doe.
This option is factually inaccurate according to the story. The doe was killed by Penny specifically for its organs, which were used as a counter-poison to save his life after the rattlesnake bite. The doe was a victim in the sequence of events, not an aggressor who attacked Jody's father.

The incorrect option is 3: he was stung by bees.
While a serious bee sting allergy can be dangerous, a bee sting is not the injury that afflicted Jody's father in the story. The narrative is very clear that the life-threatening condition Penny faced was due to the highly toxic venom of a rattlesnake, necessitating the immediate and drastic remedy of using the doe's organs.

The incorrect option is 4: he was dying.
This option is misleading because while Penny was indeed close to death *after* being bitten by the rattlesnake, it describes his condition rather than the *cause* of the condition, which is what the question asks. The primary event that happened to him was the rattlesnake bite (Option 2); the resulting state was that he was dying. Choosing this option misses the specific, initiating action that led to the central theme of the story.