The Hitchhiker

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Reading Check

1. What is Mrs. Adam’s primary concern with her son’s trip?

2. What does Ronald see at the detour where the road ends?

3. What does Ronald resolve to do the next time he sees the Hitchhiker?

4. Which sound direction does the script note for the lines in which Ronald begins to see the Hitchhiker repeatedly, in many places?

5. Why does Ronald stop in Gallup, New Mexico?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Describe the man Ronald sees periodically in the first days of his journey. Why does this sight unnerve him?

2. How does Ronald feel after his first verbal interaction with the Hitchhiker? What information does Ronald give the man?

3. Summarize Ronald’s interaction with the Hitchhiker in Oklahoma. What unfortunate accident almost takes place?

4. Describe the scene between the female hitchhiker and Ronald. Why does he pick her up? How does the scene end?

5. Who is Mrs. Whitney? What information does Ronald learn from this woman?

Paired Resources

“The Hitch Hiker”

• Orson Welles’s 1942 episode of “The Hitch Hiker” was read live for radio audiences.
• As the radio adaptation of Fletcher’s drama, this source connects with the same themes of The Inevitability of Death, How Perception Shapes Reality, and The Corruption of the Mundane.
• In what ways does Welles’s narration contribute to Fletcher’s script?

“The Hitch-Hiker”

• This 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone is based on Fletcher’s short radio play.
• As the TV adaptation of Fletcher’s drama, this source connects with the same themes of The Inevitability of Death, How Perception Shapes Reality, and The Corruption of the Mundane.
• Compare and contrast the radio version with the televised version of the thriller. How does the addition of visuals add or detract from Fletcher’s suspense in the script?

“Orson Welles on the Air, 1938-1946”

• Indiana University Bloomington’s research project compiles information on Welles’s radio programs.
• Welles’s readings of radio thrillers often connected to the themes of How Perception Shapes Reality and The Corruption of the Mundane.
• Who was Orson Welles, and how did he shape the genre of radio thrillers?

“Lucille Fletcher, 88, Author of ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’”

• This article from The New York Times discusses the life and writings of Lucille Fletcher. (Subscription may be needed to view.)
• What barriers did Fletcher need to overcome as a female writer working in the mid-20th century?

Recommended Next Reads

Sorry, Wrong Number by Lucille Fletcher

• Fletcher’s 1943 radio thriller, in which a woman attempts to notify authorities after she inadvertently overhears a murder plot on her telephone line, won the 1960 Edgar Award for best radio drama.
• Shared themes include The Inevitability of Death and How Perception Shapes Reality.
• Shared topics include isolation, doubting one’s own perceptions, and Golden Age of Radio thrillers.
• Sorry, Wrong Number on SuperSummary

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• Jackson’s 1959 novel, which follows a researcher and his group of volunteers as they examine an abandoned house for supernatural forces, is considered by Stephen King to be one of “only two great novels of the supernatural in the last hundred years.” (The other is Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.)
• Shared themes include The Inevitability of Death, How Perception Shapes Reality, and The Corruption of the Mundane.
• Shared characteristics include influential thrillers and significant female authors of the 20th-century thriller genre.
• The Haunting of Hill House on SuperSummary