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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Jonathan feel guilty about at the campfire?

2. How do the men react to the Corporal at the campfire?

3. Who is the first person to greet Jonathan at the campfire?

4. What does Jonathan find interesting about the Corporal's yelling at the Hessians?

5. Who helps Jonathan bury the boy's parents?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the Corporal's reaction to Jonathan and the boy's appearance at the campfire reveal about his character?

2. Why is the Corporal being kind to Jonathan after he wakes him up?

3. Why does Jonathan feel a sense of comaraderie with his enemy captor, just because he winks at him?

4. What is the significance of Jonathan's telling the Corporal that he wants to go home, and the Corporal telling him that he's needed?

5. Why does the young Hessian insist on digging the grave on his own?

6. According to the Corporal, how do the boy's dead parents fit into the story as a whole?

7. How do the Hessians treat Jonathan when he is trying to save their lives?

8. What event causes Jonathan to reassess whether the Hessians are his friends or his enemies as he milks the cow?

9. In what way does Jonathan begin to see the Corporal differently when the man wakes him up at the campfire?

10. Why is the task of milking the cow so comforting to Jonathan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In what ways is this book a coming-of-age story? What are the major events that cause Jonathan to change from a child to an adult, and how do these changes manifest in him? How is he different before and after his experiences as a soldier?

Essay Topic 2

What is the author's view of war? How does he use the murder of the child's parents to advance this view? What does the Corporal symbolize in regard to the author's view of war?

Essay Topic 3

What does the author accomplish by having the Hessians use a language that Jonathan cannot understand, but the reader can? How would the scene in which Jonathan is first taken prisoner be altered if Jonathan understood what his captors were saying? What impact would this have on the reader's experience?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 772 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample