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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 Captain Kidd own that is banned in Texas?

2. What is it that Captain Kidd is drawn to about Mrs. Gannet?

3. What color ascot does Captain Kidd wear with his reading suit?

4. What does Captain Kidd buy from Thurber, in addition to the newspapers?

5. What is Johanna doing in the hotel room when Captain Kidd gets back with Mrs. Gannet in Chapter 9?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Captain Kidd choose his news stories to manage the crowd?

2. What is Captain Kidd’s approach to reading local news?

3. Why is Johanna nervous when they encounter the army on the road in Chapter 5, and how does Captain Kidd take care of her?

4. Where does Johanna run off to in Chapter 7, and how does Captain Kidd get her back?

5. What Jefferson Kidd’s experience at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend?

6. What is Captain Kidd’s uniform for his news reading performances?

7. What is the town of Spanish Fort like?

8. Why does Captain Kidd show Johanna the weapons he carries, and what is her response?

9. Why does the narrator say that there is no Kiowa word for thank you?

10. How did Britt Johnson come to be responsible for Johanna?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The frontier has always been attractive to Americans as a place where each person gets to make their own law, and there is not a single law or cultural authority. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the lawlessness of the frontier in News of the World? Who benefits by it, and who loses? What will it take for the frontier culture to transition to the culture Captain Kidd cites from Hammurabi, where the law is the same for king and peasant alike?

Essay Topic 2

Paulette Jiles spends a good deal of time describing the details of people’s armament, distinguishing between types of rifles and handguns. Why are these details of manufacture important to the characters, and how does Jiles’ close descriptions of them affect the mood and tone of the narrative? What else does Jiles describe with similar attention to details of manufacture, and how do those descriptions affect the tone of the narrative?

Essay Topic 3

When is News of the World most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

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