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

2. What does Jonathan consider doing when all the Hessians are asleep in the house?

3. How does the boy respond the first time Jonathan asks about his parents?

4. What does Jonathan do before leaving the house while the Hessians are asleep?

5. When does the Corporal want the soldiers to arrive at the house where the Hessians are?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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?

3. Why does Jonathan think he sees himself from the day before when he returns home?

4. In what way does untying himself from the sleeping Hessian represent a change in Jonathan?

5. When one of the soldiers urges Jonathan toward the house where the Hessians are sleeping, reassuring him that nothing will happen to him, what does this reveal about how Jonathan's experience has made him different from the other men?

6. What connection does Jonathan make between the death of his father's friend in battle and the death of the boy's parents at the hands of the Corporal?

7. What is the significance of Jonathan choosing to carry the boy and leave the gun in the house?

8. How do the reactions of the men differ from those of the Corporal when Jonathan appears at the campfire?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Trace Jonathan's relationship to his borrowed rifle throughout the story. What does his relationship to this object symbolize about who he is at various points in the story? Specifically, what is the symbolism of his destroying it at the end?

Essay Topic 2

Do the men's initial reactions to fighting Hessians rather than Redcoats foreshadow Jonathan's later experiences with Hessians, or do his experiences as their prisoner reveal another side of them in Jonathan's perception? What do the Hessians represent to the men, and what do they later come to represent for Jonathan?

Essay Topic 3

Why does the author present the youngest Hessian as being so much more decent than the other two? What does this reveal about the author's vision of youth, and how does it relate to Jonathan's youth?

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