The Fighting Ground

The Corporal, a tough-minded yet mysterious veteran, seems intent on bringing the fight to the enemy using every tactic and volunteer he can muster. He has no fear and expects others to be the same. He also has no qualms about ordering summary executions of people he believes are enemies. In his hurry to kill the three Hessians who escaped the Rocktown battle, the Corporal uses Jonathan almost as if he were a prisoner, to the point of threatening to shoot the boy if he refuses commands.

In his ruthlessness, the Corporal represents war itself. The strategies employed by wartime leaders, like the strategies employed by the Corporal, prioritize objective successes over human life. A citizen, a soldier, or even a young boy like Jonathan is easily sacrificed if doing so benefits the cause or larger community. The Corporal, not Jonathan’s Hessian captors, becomes the main antagonist of the story; he is the angry, determined, almost fanatical face of war. But even his cruelty is complex. When the Corporal closes the eyes of the fallen Hessians, he seems to recognize and respect the humanity of the enemy. So, while his cruelty represents the ruthlessness of war, his final actions represent the simultaneous magnanimity of war.

The Hessian platoon that confronts Jonathan’s volunteer unit is made up of 30 specially trained elite German soldiers called grenadiers. Britain leases Hessians, principally from the German state of Hesse, as an auxiliary army in the British effort to suppress the American uprising. They’re roundly despised by the Americans, who consider them mercenaries, or soldiers for hire, with no honor and a taste for brutality. The three grenadiers who capture Jonathan, however, turn out to be ordinary men who treat him fairly. Jonathan learns that his enemies aren’t the monsters he thought they were. Reluctantly, he grows to admire them and doesn’t wish them dead like the Corporal.

In the evolution of Jonathan’s relationship with the Hessians, Avi depicts the complexities of war. While the Hessians are undoubtedly the enemy, they are also real people. Jonathan recognizes aspects of his own community in the Hessians, such as when the older soldier’s actions with an old wound remind the boy of his father. The actions and expressions of the soldiers often mirror those of Jonathan’s allies, showing readers that the similarities between two sides in a conflict often outweigh their differences.

The leader of the trio of Hessian grenadiers who capture Jonathan is a grizzled veteran of war, tough-minded and practical. Beyond the commands he gives, he’s a man of few words, speaks no English, and manages to communicate with Jonathan through gestures and facial expressions. He treats Jonathan gruffly but with fairness. At their farmhouse hideout, he agrees to let Jonathan bury the farm couple’s bodies, to the point of assigning the youngest soldier to the task; these decisions are signs of his humanity. He relaxes by smoking a pipe, itself a symbol of peace. As a leader of his group, the old Hessian soldier stands in contrast to the leader of the American soldiers, the Corporal. Where the Corporal is cruel and unforgiving, even of those on his own side, the Hessian treats his prisoner of war with civility. He represents an alternative to the brutality of war exhibited by the Corporal.

One of the three German soldiers who capture Jonathan, the tall soldier is the strong man of the group. He doesn’t have a lot to say, all of it in German, but he behaves competently. At the farmhouse, he gets a fire started in the fireplace. His purpose in the story is to round out the trio of Jonathan’s Hessian captors, a man not to be trifled with who serves as a deterrent to Jonathan’s thoughts of escape.

The youngest of the trio of Hessian captors is himself probably a teenager. Jonathan compares him to his own brother, who likely shares the soldiers age and occupation. He sometimes fingers his flimsy mustache, an unfinished symbol of his growing manhood. He can be talkative, and he’s often friendly toward Jonathan, with whom he makes some progress in communicating despite their language barrier. As a young soldier who follows directives and does the best he can without cruelty, he becomes for Jonathan a symbol of the humanity of his enemies and a mirror of himself. When the young soldier dies at the hands of the American soldiers, it stands as a testament not only to the cruelties of war but to the potential outcome of Jonathan’s folly.

The small child whom Jonathan finds in the French couple’s farm shed speaks no English but warms to Jonathan’s caring attitude. By implementing a language barrier even between citizens on the same side, Avi demonstrates the failure of communication across all aspects of war. The boy finally speaks when the Corporal’s French volunteer communicates with him in his native tongue. Alone in the world now that his parents have been executed, the boy symbolizes the terrible costs of war, especially those paid by innocent civilians.

Wounded at the Rocktown battle, the French volunteer is “one of the French people who had lately come to live in the area” (28). Serene and wise, he has a calming influence on those around him, especially Jonathan. He explains to Jonathan that the Corporal, a confusing figure for the boy, is an excellent soldier and tactician but inclined a bit too much toward cruelty. The French volunteer speaks to the orphaned French boy, who tells what happened to his parents and gives other details about the farm, details that will prove useful to the Americans. The French volunteer decides to take responsibility for the orphan; that, and his gentle way with words, make him a symbol of peace and wisdom during warfare.

At the edge of a farm near the battle of Rocktown, Jonathan discovers the bodies of the farmer and his wife. The couple were accused by the Corporal of spying for the Hessians; they were summarily executed. Jonathan cajoles his Hessian captors into helping him bury them. The couple represent the harsh reality of war as it affects the local citizens and the reality that not everyone in the American colonies was in favor of the Revolution. Their deaths speak as well to the Corporal’s vindictive character.

The citizens from Jonathan’s village who join up to fight against enemy forces are volunteers, essentially amateur soldiers who form local militias to protect their towns from invasion. Jonathan becomes a very young volunteer when he joins the local group of men who march south to fight the Hessians. Their commander, the Corporal, is an enlisted squad leader sent by Revolutionary government forces to help local villagers fight effectively. The volunteers represent the naivety and inexperience of many aspects of and participants in war.

Jonathan’s father, wounded in battle during the previous year, needs Jonathan to help him with their farm. His elder son is already away at war, and he refuses to let Jonathan join up. The father knows how dangerous battle can be; he represents those colonists who have already suffered three years of damaging conflict and wish it was over. As an experienced soldier, he also recognizes the unnecessary trauma of war and wishes to spare his son from it. The father’s reluctance to let Jonathan go to war contrasts with the Corporal’s insistence that the boy do so.