62 pages • 2 hours read
AviThe Fighting Ground
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Glory Versus Tragedy in War
Jonathan yearns to be a soldier like his older brother so that he, too, can achieve glory by fighting for his country. At age 13, all Jonathan knows about war are the crack of a musket and the stories of battles won. His father, a veteran of battle, understands the harsher realities of war—his injury still bothers him, and his eyes cloud over when his young son asks about the war. While his father presents a more realistic perspective of war early in the novel, Jonathan, wooed by the glorious tales of war, ignores the less heroic perspective presented by his father.
At the tavern, the Corporal impresses him into service; the boy is only too happy to oblige, but within hours Jonathan discovers that war isn’t glorious but a horrific and terrifying experience. Jonathan’s perspective of war as a heroic endeavor is both immediately and gradually dismantled, first by his disorienting experience with battle, and eventually via his interactions with the Hessians.
Jonathan’s views on war shift quickly when he enters battle. The suddenness of the oncoming battle and the quick, impatient shouts from the men around him jangle his nerves. Outside of the controlled circumstances of farm life or his own imagination, the reality of battle proves much more disorienting and frightening than he expected. The enemy Hessian platoon advances, dressed in spectacular, colorful uniforms not unlike the ones Jonathan dreamed of wearing, but now those glorious fabrics decorate large, terrifying enemy soldiers. Jonathan himself is dressed not in a prideful uniform, but his daily clothes, foreshadowing his lack of preparation for battle.
As the battle begins, Jonathan fires off a round, but the tremendous noise, clouds of gun smoke, and bodies falling at his feet disorient him. This wasn’t at all what he expected: “he stood where he was, confused. Why were things happening so quickly? It was unfair” (49). In this moment, the reader realizes the naivete of Jonathan’s position and his immaturity. War is not fair, and his belief that it ever was belies his gullibility.
All thoughts of greatness vanish from Jonathan’s mind when he runs away to the woods, replaced by terror and shame. In the moments of his first battle, the boy learns the awful truth about war—it is horrifying, bloody, dangerous, confusing, and humiliating. There’s no glory in chaos, no pride in running away, and no satisfaction in being scared.
Jonathan’s situation gets worse. He’s captured and forced to join a trio of Hessians as they search for a place to hide for the night. To his shame, he finds himself sympathizing with them and wanting to be a part of their group. “Whose side, he asked himself, was he on?” (128). This war business turns out to be vastly more difficult, dangerous, and frustrating than he’d ever imagined. By humanizing the Hessians and making them relatable, Jonathan’s experience further deconstructs the myth of the glory of war. The reader realizes that even the most despicable enemies are human and killing them is a tragedy. When the Corporal insists on killing the Hessians Jonathan befriended, Jonathan learns with great clarity and finality that war is a hellish business in which the bad guys aren’t really bad and the good guys can be awful.
He returns home, embittered by the terrible warfare that so recently he’d ached to experience. The glory of battle is a myth; its horror is all too real. At home, he hears the quiet, reassuring sound of his father’s hoe digging in the earth, and he knows that all he wants in life is to live in peace.
Adapting to a Crisis
While the greatest theme communicated by Avi throughout the novel is the avoidable cruelty of war, as mentioned above, he is not necessarily a pacifist and understands that conflict is sometimes necessary. As Jonathan learns, crises are eminent within such conflicts, and it is necessary to adapt in order to survive. While Jonathan could surrender to his emotions or fear, the reader finds that he is most successful when he conquers his emotions, considers his situation rationally, and acts intentionally.
At first stunned by the surprising chaos of battle, Jonathan slowly regains his reason and begins to observe, think, and adapt. He finds that, despite his ignorance of war, he can improve his situation by reasoning out what to do next. When he is captured by the Hessians, for example, Jonathan is at first too overwhelmed to consider his options. But as he regains his senses, he begins to note facts that could aid him. Using his powers of observation, he realizes that the Hessians are lost: “As they gazed now one way, now another, Jonathan watched intently. He decided they did not know which way to go” (71). Jonathan collects these facts for later use. At the farmhouse, he realizes the cow needs milking, and he convinces the men to let him search for a milk bucket in the nearby shed, where he discovers a young boy in hiding who’ll prove useful later. These small details not only form the narrative and propel it forward, they also serve as tiny anchors for Jonathan when he later escapes.
During his frightening adventure with the Hessians, Jonathan uses his wits to make his situation better. Without being taught to do so, Jonathan has discovered the most powerful tool of the soldier: to adapt to rapidly changing situations. His greatest adaptation, though, is his realization that war itself is a tragedy to be avoided.
Kindness or Brutality in a Crisis
Jonathan finds himself caught between his natural kindness and his need to fight against his fellow humans. Several times, he must choose between friendly and hostile—even brutal—behavior, and these dilemmas test Jonathan’s conscience and resolve.
While kindness is his moral code, it is also a valuable strategic tool. For example, when he is captured by the Hessians, Jonathan at first wants only to cooperate with them, but later he realizes his duty is to try to escape. He doesn’t want to be chased again and possibly shot, so he bides his time, cooperative and friendly, while looking for a chance to sneak away. In his kindness, Jonathan cultivates trust, which in turn gains him access to his own escape.
Jonathan is not the only character who feels this tug of war between compassion and brutality in war. At the farmhouse, the Hessians don’t seem to care about the untended bodies of the farm couple. Offended by their callous attitude, Jonathan stands up to them and insists they help him bury the bodies. The Hessians, realizing that common decency requires they tend to the dead, agree to Jonathan’s wishes. In this way, Jonathan resolves the conflict between the hardened attitudes of soldiers and the need to show compassion to nearby civilians.
When Jonathan escapes, he is faced with the opportunity to choose cruelty. He could shoot the soldiers, barring his own recapture and proving himself a heroic soldier. Instead, he “quietly unloaded the gun and put it back where it had been. All the while he kept wiping tears from his face” (105). He thus completely avoids any confrontation with them, and he shows mercy to men who, after all, had not been unkind. As evidenced by his own tears, it is a true dilemma for Jonathan—not just the question of whether to kill the Hessians in cold blood, but that he would even consider doing so. Jonathan is afraid of the danger he is in, of course, but he is also afraid of the impact his situation might have on his own moral character.
The American Corporal, of course, represents the dark, brutal side of war. He is willing to kill innocent civilians, bombard enemy forces, lie to his own soldiers, and sacrifice a young boy, all in the name of war. Initially admired, Jonathan’s perspective on the Corporal shifts as he begins to understand the realities of war. Even his fellow soldiers recognize that the callousness symbolized by the Colonel is unnecessarily cruel. The Corporal chooses brutality and, in the end, this stands in contrast to Jonathan’s compassion. Despite his best attempts at resolving conflicts peaceably, Jonathan realizes that a battlefield is a hard place for kindness, and he forswears war altogether.
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