Thursday, February 19, 2009
Hunger
" We could not find something substantial to eat. We got hungrier day after day, to the point that our stomachs started hurting and our vision got blurred at times. "We had no choice but to sneak back in Mattru Jong. As a child I really didn't think before I did things. In my opinion most adults wouldn't go back to a town that had been destroyed by rebels,just for food that tastes better and money. Thinking as a child I tend to think about comfort zones. Yes they needed money, but to endanger yourself and your brothers is kind of crazy. If I couldn't find my parents I would want to feel that comforting spirit from my them. When they went back and found the money, they couldn't buy food anyway, because the sellers needed the food for themselves. The hunger inside was beyond food in my opion. Maybe they where trying to find hope of finding their parents. In life you continue to fall upon childish actions. Sometimes I don't think about the outcome of situations. Some people including myself tend to think about pleasing ourselves (that hunger within). Many of us do certain things because it seems like a great idea at the time, but in reality as we get wiser, we Begin to take cautious steps. Now that I' am older I question myself, and think about the outcome. Ishmael is a young boy forced to deal with an adult situation, with saying that I'm from America, I have grown accustom to the life that I have, so I can't say that I would do anything differently. This is the first time that Ishmael has been through something so extreme, so of course he may not think about his safefy first. In America it would be difficult to carry an AK47 and get away with it. Who am I to say that what he did was crazy, I couldn't imagine being in that situation. His culture is different from mine, but I do know that life is all about hard decisions. What they did in my opinion, was simply suicide. Situations are always trying, but for me that hunger lies inside of me. Wanting things to be the same, and trying to make things better by avoiding things that can hurt me.
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DK,
ReplyDeleteYou make some great points, but first I want to give some rhetorical advice to help out your clarity. Don't use pronouns so much! As I started reading your comparison to yourself and the characters in ALWG was blurred by the lack of nouns and the introduction of the characters as "they." I got lost in there, very easily. You started off with "me" and shifted to "they" too subtly.
I love your commentary on "the hunger inside." That is a magnificent idea. You hit on something very important about humans -- our inability to see the long view of our decisions. The hunger for immediate success, or satisfaction, etc., is so true. And like you say, it's hard to imagine thinking about your future when you're going through what Beah is going through. How can one think about not making the choices they're making in such a situation?
Lastly, the last paragraph wasn't as clear, and that's because the writing became more generic. Too may generic phrases ("What they did") that need to be defined. Say what it was they did that was suicide: "Carrying guns and shooting other packs of children with guns was suicide." Furthermore, don't move on after that assertion. Explain what you meant by statement.
Grade: 10/10 (for good discussion and points)