Among the Hidden Essay Questions

Explain the role that the Government plays in the lives of Luke and his family members.

From the perspective of Luke's family, the Government is a distant and unfriendly entity that sets down strict but incomprehensible rules. For example, the Government tells them that they can no longer keep hogs - which the family relies on - because they are a risk to human health. This makes no sense to Luke's family, which has kept hogs for years. The fact that this rule is instituted to protect the health of the new inhabitants in the housing complex behind the farm is never addressed.

Why does Luke take the risk of making contact with the possible third child in the Sports family house?

Luke has had to deal with increasing restrictions on his freedom: first, he cannot go outside; next, he cannot go downstairs; then he cannot eat dinner with the family at the table or even spend time with his mother. These restrictions come at a time when his brothers are growing up and he is realizing that he will never be able to make friends or form a family like they have. Therefore, since he feels he has little to lose, Luke decides to take the risk of being detected in order to try to make a new friend.

What are some of the social differences between Luke's family and Jen's?

The reader is first introduced to the differences between the two families when Luke breaks into Jen's house and notices how new her furniture is, noting that all the furniture in his house is old and dusty. Later on, Jen introduces him to all the small luxuries that Baron families enjoy, ranging from snack food and internet access to the ability to sneak out of the house and go shopping. However, because Luke's family are farmers and therefore have access to land, they are able to eat meat, which is something that even Barons are unable to access.

Jen gives Luke a number of books and articles to read that suggest that the Government is not honest with its people about the need for population control. Jen's father later tells Luke that this information is just as biased as the Governmental sources because it is written by members of a political resistance. Which do you think is more likely to be accurate: the Governmental sources or the sources put out by the resistance? Why?

I think that the sources that are put out by the resistance are more likely to be accurate. The Government sources are not only paid for by the Government, they are also used to justify an oppressive law; in other words, they serve an authoritarian purpose for the ruling class. The resistance research, on the other hand, is not only created at great risk to the researchers, but it is also not used to justify any law - it's only used to challenge an existing one. Moreover, the Government research is based on a situation in the distant past, in which a famine threatened the population. This situation is greatly different from the one facing Luke's society in the present, which the resistance research seems to account for. Therefore, I would expect the resistance writings to be more accurate.

Jen’s father is a complex character - he is a member of the Population Police, and yet he also harbors a third child in his home. Is he a sympathetic character? Why or why not?

I do think that Jen's father is a sympathetic character. Even though he is a member of the Population Police and takes credit for the deaths of Jen and her friends, he does this in order to deflect suspicion from his efforts to find fake IDs for Shadow Children. By working from within the system, he is able to sabotage it more cleanly than if he worked from the outside to oppose it. Though some people might say that Jen's father is unsympathetic because he lies and supports a system he supposedly hates, I believe that he is a good character because he uses his position to help vulnerable Shadow Children.