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Study
Questions for The Light in the Forest
Chapter 1
1. Why
does True Son object to being returned to his white family?
2. What
aspects of white society repulse True Son during the stop at the
army camp?
Chapter 2
3. Why
does Richter shift the narration to Del’s point of view in Chapter
2?
4. What
arguments does True Son offer to show Del he is not white, but
Indian?
Chapter 3
5. Why
does True Son contemplate suicide?
6. What
does the old sycamore at the forks of the Muskingum symbolize?
7. Why
does True Son give up the idea of eating the May apple root?
8. How
does Half Arrow characterize the white men?
Chapter 4
9.
Which of Little Crane’s comments about white men seem most
revealing?
10. Why
does Half Arrow watch quietly while the guard binds True Son’s arms?
11. What
do the stories from Cuyloga teach True Son?
12. What
does True Son’s crossing of the river symbolize?
Chapter 5
13. What
signs tell True Son he has entered the white man’s territory?
14. In
what ways does True Son find the wooden-framed lodges of the whites
symbolic of their values?
15.
Compare and contrast the appearance and behavior of Cuyloga to that
of True Son’s white father.
16. Why
does Del Hardy accompany Mr. Butler and his son to their home?
Chapter 6
17.
Describe the significance of Richter’s shift in point of view at the
start of Chapter 6.
18.
Describe True Son’s reactions to the two names he isolates from
Harry Butler’s speech - “Susquehanna” and “Paxton.”
19.
Compare the reactions of Myra Butler, Aunt Kate, and Gordie to True
Son on the first day of his return.
Chapter 7
20. Why
does True Son have difficulty falling asleep his first night in the
Butler home?
21. What
does True Son remember Cuyloga saying about the massacre?
22. What
Indian ideas does Uncle Wilse Owens consider “heathen”?
23. How
does True Son defend the Delaware language?
24.
Compare the complaints against the Indians made by Uncle George to
those made by Uncle Wilse.
25. Why
does Uncle Wilse hit True Son?
Chapter 8
26. What
reason does True Son give for Aunt Kate’s “theft” of his moccasins
and Indian clothes?
27. How
does True Son react to Del Hardy’s departure?
28. What
white practices does True Son despise most?
29. How
do Kringas’ remarks about the bounty of the Great Spirit help
develop Richter’s theory of energy?
30. What
analogies does Bejance draw between his life and True Son’s?
31. Why
does the coming of February brighten True Son’s mood?
32. Why
do Uncle Wilse and Harry Butler misinterpret True Son’s abortive
adventure to Third Mountain?
33. Why
is True Son unhappy to return home even though his father says Corn
Blade is dead?
Chapter 9
34. Why
is Myra Butler bedridden?
35. What
do Aunt Kate’s remarks to Parson Elder indicate about her character?
36. What
lessons does Parson Elder try to teach True Son?
Chapter 10
37. What
do Dr. Childsley’s conjectures about True Son’s unexplainable fever
reveal about his attitude toward Indians?
38. Why
does Mr. Butler gain little comfort from his visit to True Son’s
sickroom?
39. How
does the scene of Harry Butler updating his account books let
Richter criticize white civilization?
Chapter 11
40. How
does True Son compare the value that whites and Indians place on
messages they receive?
41. Why
does the call of Memedhakemo, the turtle dove, make True Son so
homesick?
42. How
does Richter’s use of point of view increase the reader’s
understanding of True Son’s illness?
43. How
does Richter use imagistic language to explain the contrast between
True Son’s Indian and white parents?
44. Why
are Half Arrow’s remarks about True Son’s speech patterns
significant?
45. Why
does Half Arrow fail, but True Son succeed, in understanding Mr.
Owens’ and his friends’ reaction to Little Crane’s stories?
46.
During the attempted scalping of Uncle Wilse, what clues show the
impact of “civilizing” forces on True Son’s character?
Chapter 12
47. What
is True Son’s only regret about leaving the Butler home?
48. Why
does Richter carefully point out which Indian tribes used the
mountain path that True Son and Half Arrow are following?
49. Why
does Half Arrow’s plan to steal the trader’s two dugouts disturb
True Son, and how do the boys resolve their difference of opinion?
50. What
does True Son think about as he and Half Arrow float by Fort Pitt?
Chapter 13
51. Why
does Richter use most of Chapter 13 describing the idyllic days True
Son and Half Arrow spend in the forest before returning to their
village?
52. How
does True Son’s and Half Arrow’s behavior toward their relatives
change because of the experience in the forest?
Chapter 14
53. What
interrupts the village’s celebration of True Son’s return?
54. As
the war party advances, why do the scalps taken by Thitpan’s
warriors upset True Son?
55. How
does Thitpan angrily try to justify the scalping of the child?
56. How
is True Son’s Indian mother similar to the white woman on the
riverboat who accuses the men of being cowards?
57. How
does True Son’s dream about the Butlers influence his decision to
warn the riverboat passengers of the ambush?
Chapter 15
58. How
do memories of Be-Smoke and Heavy Belt help True Son during his
trial for treason?
59. Why
does Cuyloga blacken his face with charcoal?
60.
Compare the explanations for True Son’s “treason” made by True Son,
Cuyloga, and the other warriors.
61. Why
does Cuyloga refuse to say good-bye to True Son?
62. How
does True Son’s second crossing of the river into white territory
differ from his first crossing with Colonel Bouquet and Del Hardy?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
An
Examination of 18th Century Life
1. What
does Dr. Childsley’s treatment of True Son’s fever show about
medical practices in the mid 1700s?
2. At
Albany in 1754, John Penn and his associates, including Benjamin
Franklin, purchased from the Iroquois rights to land west of the
Susquehanna. The Delawares were outraged and claimed the sale void
because neither the Iroquois nor any other of the Six Nations owned
land in western Pennsylvania. The Delawares, nevertheless, were
ousted from the region. How does Richter work this historical fact
into his fiction?
3. Harry
Emerson Wildes, author of The Delaware, describes Colonel
Henry Bouquet as a merciless Indian hater who used bloodhounds to
track down Indians. Compare Richter’s portrait of Bouquet with
Wildes’.
4. In
December, 1763, fifty Paxtang militiamen rode to Lancaster to
massacre the Conestogo, a tiny tribe of basket makers, bowl carvers,
farmers, and fishermen. How does Richter use this historical
incident in the novel?
5. What
does the excerpt from Harry Butler’s accounting ledger in Chapter 10
suggest about 18th century farming?
6. Does
Richter’s novel suggest that he agrees or disagrees with the
following quote from St. Jean de Crevecoeur, an 18th
century French aristocrat who visited the American frontiers?
An
Examination of Mysticism
1. Do you
think The Light in the Forest concerns itself with spiritual
as well as historical questions?
2. In
what ways does Richter develop the theme of the mystery of the
wilderness?
3. How
does white civilization disrupt the organic unity of man and nature
that the Indians experience?
4.
Throughout the novel, Richter thematically examines the search for
the Spiritual Father. Neither Cuyloga nor Harry Butler, symbols of
the physical or earthly father, completely accepts True Son. But
True Son often refers to a third “father.” Who is this father, and
how may he eventually bring comfort to the alienated boy?
5. How
does True Son represent the spiritual crisis of 20th
century man as well as of the displaced Indian?
An
Examination of Richter’s Theory of “Psycho-Energics”
1. Do you
believe that comfort and conveniences make man physically and
mentally lazy?
2. How
many appliances do you use during the course of a normal day and how
do you view their use?
3.
Richter believes that men hunger for energy, though they frequently
experience energy deficiencies. Have you ever experienced such
deficiencies, and what caused them to occur?
4.
Richter thinks youth can be recaptured if one consciously tries to
revitalize the supply of personal energy. Do you know older people
who seem remarkably youthful? If so, what accounts for their
youthfulness?
5.
Richter writes that, in order to maintain the flow of energy, our
desires and goals must never be fully realized. Is this, for you, a
satisfying or frustrating philosophy?
Think Deeper
1. Choose any three trips or
journeys True Son makes during the novel and compare what he EXPECTS
to find on each journey with what he actually DOES find.
2. Discuss the role of any
two of the following characters as Richter’s spokesmen: Parson
Elder, Kringas, Little Crane, Bejance.
3. Explain as completely as
you can why True Son warns the whites on the riverboat about the
Indian ambush.
4. How does the epigraph
from Wordsworth at the start of the novel support Richter’s theme?
5. The following aphorisms
from Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack were intended as
practical guidelines for colonial Americans. Compare how Cuyloga and
Harry Butler might have reacted to each of them.
a. “‘If you would be
wealthy,’ says he, in another almamack, ‘think of saving as well as
of Getting.’”
b. “But with our Industry,
we must likewise be ‘steady, settled,’ and ‘careful,’ and oversee
our own affairs ‘with our own Eyes,’ and not trust too much to
others, for as Poor Richard says,
‘I
never saw an oft removed Tree,
Nor
yet an oft removed Family,
That
throve so well as those that
Settled be.’”
c. “But Poverty often
deprives a Man of all Spirit and Virtue:’ ‘Tis hard for an empty
Bag to stand
upright,’ as Poor Richard truly says.”
6. Richter says in the
“Acknowledgements” preceding The Light in the Forest that his
literary purpose is to understand and sympathize with both whites
and Indians. But the careful reader discovers a bias in favor of
Indian ways. How does Richter reveal his bias in the novel?
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