Characters
What is the name of the boy that is kidnapped?
What is Red Chief or Johnny?
What is the name of the town where the story takes place?
What is Summit?
What was ironic about the town’s name of Summit?
What is…the town is as flat as a flannel cake, but the word “summit” refers to a high mountain peak?
What type of figurative language is used here:
“There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course.”
What is a simile?
What vocabulary word means the price or payment demanded in return for the release of property or a person?
What is a ransom?
Who is telling the story?
Who is Sam?
What amount of ransom do the kidnappers want at first?
What is $2,000?
When Sam went to observe the town’s folk after the kidnapping, he expected to see the villagers armed with pitchforks looking for the dastardly kidnappers, but what he saw was a peaceful landscape, with nobody looking for the boy. What type of irony is this?
What is situational irony?
What type of figurative language is used here? “The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles and hair the color of the cover of a magazine you buy at the newsstand when you want to catch a train.”
What is a metaphor?
What word means for the love of one’s own children?
What is philoprogenitiveness?
Who is the character that Red Chief rides like a “hoss” for 90 miles?
Who is Bill?
In the ransom note, what amount did the kidnappers ask for?
What is $1,500?
Bill tries to tell Sam that he took Red Chief back home because if he didn’t he’d have to go to the “madhouse.” Meanwhile, the readers know that Red Chief is actually standing just 8 feet behind Bill the whole time. What type of irony is this?
What is dramatic irony?
“That boy put up a fight like a welterweight cinnamon bear…” is an example of what type of figurative language?
What is a simile?
What vocabulary word was used to describe Red Chief’s raised up freckles?
What is bas-relief?
Who is Red Chief’s father?
Who is Ebenezer Dorset?
In his reply, what amount did Mr. Dorset ask for to take his son back?
What is $250?
What is ironic about Red Chief’s reaction to being kidnapped?
What is…Red Chief likes being kidnapped and is having fun. (or something to this effect)
What type of figurative language is used in this line: “I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.”
What is hyperbole?
What word means in a sneaky way; secretly?
What is surreptitiously?
Which character is referred to as "Snake Eyes?"
Who is Sam?
How did Sam & Bill convince Red Chief to go home?
What is…they told him that his father had bought him a rifle and that he could hunt bears the next day.
What ironic thing occurred as a result of Bill & Sam’s ransom note?
What is…instead of paying the ransom, the father replied demanding that the kidnappers pay him to take his son back.
There are several references in this story, such as biblical characters David and Goliath as well as King Herod. What type of figurative language is this when a reference is made to a well known literary, sports, historical, etc. person or event?
What is an allusion?
Red Chief’s howl at the end of the story was compared to what musical instrument?
What is a calliope?