The Apostate quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which literary movement best describes “The Apostate”?

   • Correct answer: Naturalism
   • Romanticism
   • Gothic
   • Modernism
   • Magical Realism

   Naturalism depicts characters shaped by heredity, environment, and social forces beyond their control. Johnny is literally born in the mill and ground down by industrial poverty—a textbook Naturalist scenario.

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2. 2

   Question 2. How does the narrator describe Johnny’s physical condition?

   • Tall, strong, and capable from years of physical labor in the mills
   • Small for his age but healthy, showing resilience despite hard conditions
   • Correct answer: Stunted, hunched, and physically deteriorated by years of industrial work
   • Thin and pale but mentally sharp and ambitious for a better future

   Johnny is described as twisted and stunted, shambling “like a sickly ape.” The doctor says he has incipient rickets, and his lungs are full of lint. Years of child labor have physically deformed him.

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3. 3

   Question 3. At what age did Johnny begin working in the mills?

   • Eight years old, after his mother lost her job at the glass factory
   • Correct answer: Seven years old, winding bobbins at the jute mill
   • Six years old, guiding cloth over a hot roller in a textile mill
   • Nine years old, tying glass stoppers into bottles at a glass factory

   At age seven, Johnny went into the mills winding bobbins—before that, at age six, he was caring for his younger siblings at home.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What does "Weaver’s knot" mean in this story?

   • A type of knot used to tie bundles of raw cotton together for shipping
   • A sailor’s knot that Jack London used symbolically in his maritime fiction
   • Correct answer: A quick knot used to join the ends of two threads at a loom or bobbin machine
   • A decorative knot made by factory workers to personalize their machinery

   A weaver’s knot is used to rejoin broken threads on a loom or bobbin. Johnny ties them so automatically that he boasts he can do it in his sleep—and sometimes does, dreaming of an endless chain of knots.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What is the central theme of “The Apostate”?

   • Correct answer: Child labor and industrial exploitation destroy the body, mind, and spirit of the young
   • Hard work is the surest path out of poverty for determined working-class families
   • Rebellious children who refuse to support their families cause harm to those who depend on them
   • Factory owners are personally cruel men who take pleasure in exploiting their workers

   London subtitled the story “A Child Labor Parable.” Every detail—Johnny’s stunted body, his extinguished dreams, his machine-like consciousness—argues that industrial child labor destroys human potential. The theme is dehumanizing exploitation, not individual failure.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does the tree across the street symbolize in the story?

   • The factory smokestacks, representing the industrial system that has claimed his life
   • The silver quarter he once found, representing his guilt over a wasted opportunity
   • The floating island dessert, representing the unattainable dreams of his childhood
   • Correct answer: The lone tree across the street, representing freedom and natural life beyond the factory

   During his week of convalescence, Johnny becomes fascinated by a lone tree across the street. He stares at it for hours, watches the wind move its branches, and carries its image in his mind as he leaves. The tree—living, growing, uncontrolled—represents the natural life and freedom that factory work has denied him.

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7. 7

   Question 7. How does the story end?

   • He saves up his wages and moves to the countryside with his brother Will
   • He asks the factory foreman for a less demanding job and is refused
   • Correct answer: He climbs into an empty freight car and smiles as the train carries him away
   • He walks to the park, falls asleep under a tree, and wakes up deciding to return home

   Johnny walks out of the city, lies under a tree all afternoon, and after dark climbs into an empty freight car. The story ends with him lying in the darkness, smiling, as the train carries him away—his first act of true freedom.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Which literary device is most central to Johnny’s “moves” speech?

   • Foreshadowing, hinting early in the story that Johnny will one day rebel against the factory
   • Correct answer: Accumulation of numerical detail, building to an incomprehensible total of lifetime “moves”
   • Stream of consciousness, following Johnny’s scattered inner thoughts across a single day
   • Allegory, where every character represents an abstract social or political concept

   London stacks up numbers—thirty-six thousand moves a day, one million a month, twelve million a year, doubling at the looms—until the total becomes staggering. This accumulation forces the reader to feel the crushing weight of repetitive labor in the same way Johnny has felt it across his short lifetime.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What is Johnny’s mother’s plan for his younger brother Will?

   • Will is already working in the same jute mill alongside Johnny and their mother
   • Will has been sick for years and is unable to work or attend school regularly
   • Will has just started at the glass factory where Johnny once worked as a child
   • Correct answer: Will is being kept in school so he can become a bookkeeper and escape the mills

   Their mother has been keeping Will in school, hoping to make a bookkeeper of him. Johnny sees the bitter irony: Will’s chance at education has been paid for by the destruction of Johnny’s own body and childhood.

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10. 10

    Question 10. Why does London call Johnny an “apostate”?

    • Johnny has given up the Christian faith that sustained his family through poverty
    • Johnny has rejected the socialist movement that Jack London believed would save workers
    • Correct answer: Johnny has renounced the belief system that a person’s worth is measured by their labor
    • Johnny has abandoned his family responsibilities as a breadwinner and son

    An apostate abandons a faith. London frames the American work ethic—the idea that labor is sacred duty—as a religion. Johnny has been its faithful worshipper since age seven. His refusal to get out of bed is his act of apostasy: he renounces the creed that a person’s worth equals their productive labor. His mother’s horror at his words confirms this framing—“What he had said was blasphemy to her.”

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11. 11

    Question 11. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • Johnny was literally born inside the loom room of the mill.

      Happened

      His mother fainted in the loom room, and Johnny was born there among the machines—he drew his first breath in lint-filled air.

    • The factory inspector discovers that Johnny is underage and removes him from the mill.

      Didn't happen

      The inspector notices Johnny but does not remove him. Johnny lies about his age, saying he is fourteen. It is the one-legged twelve-year-old boy who is removed.

    • Johnny once spent fifteen cents of a found quarter on candy.

      Happened

      He found a silver quarter and, despite knowing he should bring it home, spent fifteen cents on candy and lost the remaining ten cents—an event he considers the great crime of his life.

    • Johnny’s illness during his convalescence week is caused by the lint in his lungs.

      Didn't happen

      The doctor diagnoses a severe attack of la grippe (influenza), not a lung condition, though his lungs have been damaged by lint over many years.

    • Johnny once fell in love with the superintendent’s daughter.

      Happened

      When he was guiding cloth over the hot roller at age eight, he developed a romantic fantasy about the superintendent’s daughter, whom he had seen only a few times.

    • Johnny’s mother agrees with his decision to quit and wishes him well.

      Didn't happen

      His mother weeps, covers her head with her apron, and says nothing when he leaves. She is devastated by what she sees as a betrayal of his duty to the family.

    • Johnny is running four looms at once near the end of his time in the loom room.

      Happened

      At the looms he progresses from one to two, then three and four, eventually producing more yardage than any other weaver in the room.

    • Will is bigger and physically healthier than his older brother Johnny.

      Happened

      Will, kept in school and fed partly by Johnny’s wages, is taller, heavier, and full of energy—as if the life-blood of one had been diverted into the other’s veins.

    • Johnny tells his mother he is going to a specific city where he has already found work.

      Didn't happen

      When asked where he is going, Johnny says “I don’t know—anywhere.” He has no destination, only a direction: away.

    • The story ends with Johnny boarding a freight train.

      Happened

      He climbs into an empty box-car, closes the door, and lies in the darkness smiling as the engine whistles and the train moves.

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