I am just in the beginning of "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. I find this story so far very moving and disturbing. Before he is recruited to be in the army, Ishmael sees a woman cradling a dead baby in her arms, he sees a man coughing up blood on the side of the road, and he sees many other sights that a seven year old should never see. Seeing these horrible effects of war really affect him. He feels really sad, and sick, and he really just can't believe that the war has really reached him and his town.
I also recently heard Ishmael Beah speak about his experience being a child soldier, in English class. He talked in that and in the book about being a child soldier and killing people. How after a while killing people is not difficult anymore.
I find it very interesting that one day something can totally horrify and disgust someone but another day that same person could be doing that exact thing that disgusted them and it won't affect them at all. What changed? I guess he just... got used to it. Got used to killing humans. Or maybe they didn't really get used to it, but instead maybe when you HAVE to do something you can't let your emotions get too involved and you have to just do it, not think about what your doing at all.
On the other hand, maybe Beah and the other boys were affected every single time they killed someone. In the video we watched in class and in "A Long Way Gone", Ishmael Beah talks about how once the war ended he would still have dream about the awful things and when he took a shower sometimes all he could see wasn't water, it was blood. So maybe while it's happening you don't really feel anything but afterwards it really gets to you. It's sort of like a delayed reaction.
Sometimes I don't really think about what I'm doing, but later it really hits me, that either I did something good or bad or insane. In real life there are so many choices we have to make every single day, especially as teenagers. Whether it's just simply deciding what to wear or deciding not to do your homework, or something really big that could effect our entire life. With all these decisions sometimes we don't really realize whether we made the right decision untill later, even if it's way later, like when your an adult and your like "Damn, I really wish I hadn't worn that outfit when I was 14, I wish I had worn the other one, then I wouldn't live in Australia in the desert..."
If you have ever made a choice but didn't realize the effects of it untill after, or you just feel the urge to...COMMENT:
Hi Carmen! I can relate to what you said about how Beah gets used to killing after a while in my own way a little bit. When I was a kid, I thought that people who cursed were terrible and I thought I would never curse, but now I see myself cursing pretty frequently. It's funny how things like that happen, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThis delayed reaction to a choice of mine happens all the time to me. It happens a lot on tests, I will finish a test wondering “what was the answer to that question?” then when I get home and I just sitting around, of course, remember then. But this is a good thought to think about because this happens to everyone if they like it or not.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you're saying and it reminds me of how sometimes I feel like I did something wrong or said something to someone that maybe I shouldn't have and I will just go to bed thinking about that one moment over and over again and hating myself for it.
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