# Mr. Fink’s Debating Donkey explained — Poetry > Chapter companion for Poetry by Ambrose Bierce. ## What happens A narrative poem about William Perry Peters, a verbose educator and orator from Muscatel who loves debate. He organizes a schoolhouse debate on whether speech or hearing better elevates the mind. The townspeople grow restless, and Ebenezer Fink brings his donkey into the assembly. The donkey, freed from a weighted tail, brays so loudly that Peters is blown through a window. The tale concludes with Peters now living in Soquel, opposed to education and rhetoric. ## Themes in this chapter ### Hypocrisy and Corruption Peters' love of debate is actually a monologue that silences others, and the donkey's bray exposes the emptiness of his rhetoric. ### Political Satire The poem mocks the pretensions of public debate and the self-importance of orators like Peters. ## Character check-ins ### William Perry Peters A public educator and orator from Muscatel who loves debate and is blown out a window by a donkey's bray. ### Unknown The narrator who humbly weaves the tale of Peters and the debating donkey. ## Key lines > Mr. Peters had a weakness which, ’tis painful to relate, Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate. Peters had an unfortunate addiction to arguing. _Introduces Peters' character flaw._ > And I state it as a maxim in a loosish kind of way: You’ll have the more to back your word the less you have to say. The less you speak, the more people will support you. _A wry observation on the value of silence._ > He brayed until the stones were stirred in circumjacent hills, And sleeping women rose and fled, in divers kinds of frills. The donkey's bray was so loud it shook the hills and woke women who fled in their nightclothes. _Hyperbolic description of the donkey's bray._ > Wafted William Perry Peters through the window, like a leaf! The bray blew Peters out the window as if he were a leaf. _Climactic moment of the poem._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters/mr-fink-s-debating-donkey - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters