During the war Beah is beginning to change mentally. He joins the army to help protect the village. When he joins the army he into a killing machine. He kills every rebel he can. This is a different culture that Beah has never experienced. Beah even cut one of the rebels throat who was a prisoner, and didn't care at all.
Beah forgets about the Innocent twelve year old he use to be. He has a "loss of culture." I say this because he is not acting like he use to when he lived with his family. He has to make this change for survivor. If he had stayed, that same twelve year old from his home village would have been dead. Beah had to become a man at an early age. He knew how to use a gun. He would smoke marijuana and take cocaine. He became a young soldiers.
When I think of Beah being forced to change his culture and move to a place he doesn't want to be, I think about foster kids. They have homes with someone and are taking away and put in group homes with other kids. They are there with people that don't really like them. They feel like they are in prison, but it's nothing they can do to get out until there eighteen.
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Justin,
ReplyDeleteYou have a good outline here, and provide some good example action from text. I wonder, though, beyond using a gun, smoking weed -- what kind of "becoming a man" man is he becoming!?! In less of a riddle, what argument for manliness do these things he turns to give?
In your writing, don't rely on just identify the general theme -- but make sure you start investigating those themes. For instance, masculinity as a theme...what is a man, what is weed and guns galore, and murder...? To help out, it is good to contrast with other cultures, other ideas of masculinity.
Grade: 20/20
oops, I meant: 20/25 (sorry)
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