Thursday, November 21, 2013

A Long Way Gone fishbowl #4: November 21, 2013--1st hour

Morning!  As you guys discuss on the outer circle today, please keep the following guidelines in mind.

1.  Each question you pose and each comment you offer in response to those questions should be grounded in textual evidence.  A big improvement in the last discussion, but some of your ideas were stillvague and I was left wondering why you thought or asked what you did.  I'm guessing your classmates felt the same way.


Here are a couple more examples of good posts from last class.

Here is a comment from Tristan:  


"It is a very big possibility that his family is alive because when he went inside the burnt house he couldn't find them. But also I think that he will never see his brother again because on the bottom of page 43 it says, 'It was the last time I saw junior, my older brother.'"

I italicized the "because" statements in Tristan's post as these statements were those that told me Tristan why thought that.  Conversely, others brought up the possibility that Ishmael's family was still alive and I was left wondering why they thought that given that the house they lived in burned down and Ishmael was sure he'd never see them again.

And Natalie posted, "I feel like Ishmael will later regret his actions. As of right now, he is mindlessly killing people. Earlier in the book, he states that he's not very in touch with his reality. Being on the drugs he's on now is causing him to not be himself. On page 125, Ishmael says '... which I never slept in because sleep never came to me.' I think that his inability to sleep also contributes to not thinking clearly at all. Once Ishmael escapes this war, he will have remorse for all the violence he has done.

I also picked Natalie's post because she went beyond saying "on page 125" to actually include the quote that supported her thinking.  

Lastly, remember to stay involved throughout the course of discussion.  To offer one or 2 comments or to participate every 10 minutes is insufficient.

Happy posting!

59 comments:

  1. I believe that fighting in war and witnessing all the violence has made him lose his morals because earlier in the book being starved from the war caused him and his friends to steal a corn ear from a young child. This proves that he is not focused on doing what is right, but doing we has has to do to survive.

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    1. I agree with you. It shows that he does not think straight. He is focused on what he has to do for himself and not how to help others. His life has been "on the line" many times that he just wants to stay alive as long as he can.

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  2. Do you think Ishmael will always have these horrific and vivid nightmares? Why do you think these nightmares are finally surfacing at this time in his life?

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    1. I think he will because he saw and did some very terrible things. And I think these will affect him for the rest of his life just because of how horrific it was

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    2. I think eventually he will be able to control them a little more and get away from them but I don't think they will ever be completely gone. What he had to go through was really awful and would be extremely tragic for anyone but he did it all as a teenage.

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    3. I believe that he will always have these nightmares because its not every day you can say that you've killed many rebels and doing awful drugs. This actions that happened in his past are awful and terrible and thats why he will always have nightmares. I believe that these nightmares are now surfacing because he is now not in war and so he has time to not worry about his survival, but to think about what has happened to him. In the book he continues to say that imply that his mind is not worried about himself but worried about others such as his family.

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    4. I think that he won't have these nightmares forever. But while he is healing from the things he saw and did he will have these nightmares.

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    5. I think it's because the numbness in his life and mind is finally gone and now he is remembering what he has done, he might also be realizing what had happened in that time in his life when he was a soldier.

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  3. I think that Ishmael always had these suppressed memories of his family in the back of his mind but always tried to forget by using drugs.

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  4. In chapter 18 Ishmael meets his uncle for the first time. At the same time Ishmael starts to wonder if it really was his uncle. Why would he think that someone was pretending to be his uncle?

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    1. I think that since his whole family is dead, and his dad didn't talk about his uncle that much, Ishmael can't be sure that it is his uncle so he just doubts that.

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    2. He is always suspicious of other people. On page 153 he says, "I was very suspicious of people's intentions. I had come to believe that people only befriended only to exploit one another."

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    3. He has been affected by the war for so long that he doesn't really trust new people and he likes to be alone. On page 153, it says, " I had learned to survive and take care of myself. I had done just that for most of my short like, with no one to trust, and frankly, I liked being alone." And later in the text he explains, "I was very suspicious of peoples intentions."

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    4. I think all of the war and fighting that Ishmael has seen is teaching him to not trust anyone and he is getting paranoid. If you were taught to kill everybody that wasn't part of your squad then you would be worried too!

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  5. I think that he is pushing away people that are trying to help him because he doesn't trust anybody like on page 153 when he says that "People like the lieutenant, whom I had obeyed and trusted, had made me question trusting anyone, especially adults"

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  6. On page 160, Ishmael said "I tired to think of my childhood days, but it was impossible, as I began getting flashbacks at the first time I slit a man's throat". Why do you think it was so hard to dig back in his past even when it was good?

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    1. I think that when he tries to remember the good things that have happened to him in the past it makes him realize that he doesn't have that anymore and that things will never be that way again.

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    2. "I would try desperately to think about my childhood but I couldn't. The war memories had formed a barrier that I had to break in order to think about any moment in life before the war."
      I think now that he is off the drugs he thinks about his actions and his past actions and how gruesome some of the things are that he did in the war.

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    3. I agree with Haley. Ishmael can't remember the good things that have happened to him because these good things haven't happened to him for awhile, while these drastic events have been going on daily as a child soldier.

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  7. When they came into the war, the soldiers were brainwashing his mind to believing that killing people and abusing drugs is alright to do. They gave him the thought "kill or be killed" and thats why it seems as if he is desensitized.

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    1. I believe he did get desensitized because he was taken away from his normal life and this was his new normal. He is only worried about his survival at this point because he has no one else. If the soldiers give him a way to stay alive then he will take that opportunity. They are making him kill and do drugs but then he will get to stay alive so for him that is a good trade off with his new mindset.

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  8. "I tried to think about my childhood days, but it was impossible, as I began getting flashbacks of the first time I slit a moan's throat."
    "It was the first time I had dreamt of my famly since I started running away from the war."
    How did/has Ishmael's daily motivations change throughout the book?

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    1. I think that Ismaels daily motivations have changed throughout the book from getting away and trying to find safety to killing and getting drugs. On page 126 "We had been fighting for over 2 years, and killing had become a daily activity. I had no pity for anyone." I think this quote really emphasizes what his motivation is now currently where we are reading. But I think that his intentions remained the same throughout the book, survival.

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    2. It was first more about sanity and safety that kept him going. He had too much time to think at first and he was just moving from village to village in hopes of survival. Later though, it was more for drugs and revenge when he became a boy solider

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  9. Do you think that ishmael wasn't completely desensitized, Because of the nightmares he has of people dying. and him felling that pain

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  10. On page 138, he is infuriated about being told what to do by civilians. He acts violently due to the lack of drugs in his system. Is this the main reason why he acts this way? Or is it more that he craves violence?

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    1. I think he gets more angry by this because for the past couple of years, he has been treated like an adult while he was in the army, and now when adults are starting to treat him like a child again he resents that he doesn't have that "freedom" agian

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    2. I think Ishmael acts very violently toward the civilians and Unicef people due to both lack of drugs and craving for more violence. Again, he's been brainwashed to have the mindset of killing people and nothing more. Beah was going through a very rough time being taken out of what he's known for the past few months.

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    3. "I missed my squad and needed more violence."
      ".. hadn't crossed their minds that a change of environment wouldn't immediately make us normal boys; we were dangerous, and brainwashed to kill."
      I think that because he was involved in the war for so long and was brainwashed into killing anyone that wasn't in his camp. Even when he had just arrived at the shelter he got defensive towards other boys that were fighting on the same side but from different camps.

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    4. After awhile, you body get very used to drugs and does not know what to do if you don't have a sufficient amount in your system. Although drugs are not good for you, his body now believes that it needs them to survive. So when he doesn't have a sufficient amount in his system, his body rebels and he cannot control his actions. Looking back I'm sure he regrets acting violently to the civilians but at the time he couldn't control himself and that was the way he ended up reacting.

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  11. Throughout chapters 17, the people who work for Unicef always state "It is not your fault." This statement used to aggravate the boys and result in them causing violence. Do you think they are starting to realize that it really isn't their faults? Yet, they blame themselves for all the things they've done.

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  12. I notice that on page 166 Ishmael mentions the moon for the first time since he joined the army. What do you think this means that the moon represents?

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    1. The moon represents clarity for Ishmael. He hasn't mentioned it since he was in the army because he has been impaired by drugs and war but now that he's better he sees the moon again.

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    2. I think it means freedom from his mental cage. He can think about the little things that have peaceful calming meanings once again. While he was in this cage, his mind was focused on his next dose and what the military crammed into his young brain, like shackles keeping someone from moving freely.

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  13. I disagree with the statement "he was forced into war" because earlier in the story in chapter 12 the lieutenant said very clearly that they can choose to leave if they want but they will have to survive on their own. So Ishmael had the choice to go into war with the rest of the soldiers and he had the choice to act violent.

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    1. I agree with Adam because in the book he realizes that if he left, his chances of surviving was very slim so he decided to stay with the soldiers because he believes in the statement "kill or be killed".

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    2. I think in some ways he did have a choice to go into the war or not but in other ways he didn't. Because when two people did decide not to join in they were shot on their way out of the village (pg. 107).

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    3. I don't think he was "forced into war" either but I do think that he really didn't have a choice. He was threatened or physically bullied into doing it. On page 107 "'It is better to stay here' He sighed. We had no choice. Leaving the village was as good as being dead". He did have a choice but he didn't think they could make it on their own with all the war happening,

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    4. I agree with Adam the he was not "forced into war". He just did not know what else to do. That does not make it okay for him but he wanted to stay alive and this to him was a guarantee to him not dying and being alive for a longer time.

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  14. Could Ismael not want to helped? because on page 155 he made his story of how he got bullet wounds gruesome so she would stop asking him questions

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    1. Yes, because for years he only really wanted to help himself and only himself.

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    2. He has learned from growing up in the war to not trust people, and that he would have to survive himself. In the beginning of the book he wanted someone to help him out, when the boys were ever in a abandoned village, he secretly wanted someone to ask if he was ok but as he progresses through the book, he learns to survive himself.

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  15. He starts to trust her because she shows a sense of music, which he is very interested in. By her giving him the cassette, I feel as if he ties that back to his old life, when he was dancing to hip hop and raping. It made him remember his old life and it made him feel good about himself, which hasn't happened for a while, and thats how he starts to trust her.

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  16. Do you think that Ishmael's nightmares and flashbacks of the war will haunt him forever or will he overcome them someday?

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    1. I think they will haunt him for a very long time because at the beginning of the book he mentions how he still has nightmares even though he is living in New York away from the violence

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    2. I wouldn't be surprised if Ishmael's nightmares and flashbacks don't go away because he was a child soldier which is part of a drastic civil war. Many soldiers daily are diagnosed with PTSD and Ishmael could suffer from that disorder because he witnessed all the violence that American soldiers, who are diagnosed, have seen.

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    3. I agree Felipe, adding to that, around the ages of 8-12 is usually when you are trying to "find/create yourself" and you really just want to fit in and everything that happens at that age pretty much changes you and the way you will live your life so I think all of this will impact him for the rest of his life

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  17. do you think once Ishmael got the cassettes he was able to become more emotional and open his eyes more to the violence and realize more what he had done? If so, how would the music be able to affect him that way, did it just bring back memories or is their more to it?

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    1. I think it does bring back memories but he is still scarred from the war and is very slow to trust anyone so it is going to take some time to start trusting anyone again but he will in time.

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    2. I agree with what Josh said. I think when he listened to the cassettes, especially the rap music, it brought him back to his childhood, These triggered memories made him remember who he was before the war, including his family. It's like at that moment, he finally got a reality check.

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    3. I think there was more to it. Music was a big part of Ishmael's life, after going through being a soldier and seeing all the terrible things he saw listening to music was like a pleasant surprise for him. Just like how listening to music when you are sad or happy changes your mood, I think it was like this for Ishmael but a lot more of a big deal because it was his passion. You can't really forget about passion, listening to music when Ester gave it to him was probably just as good for him as when he heard it the first time.

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  18. Will Ishmael feel it to be necessary to get back into drugs and go back to his old ways or will he be able to learn from his mistakes and move past them?

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  19. Throughout the first 4 pages of chapter 16, the boys are acting in such cruel, violent ways towards everything and mostly the people who work for Unicef. Why do they choose to do these things to innocent people? Could there have been an alternative provided for them in order to calm each of their violent needs?

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    1. It was probably because they still don't trust anyone and they have been told to kill any that aren't part of the army or civilians and they were still on drugs so that's why they were violent towards the UNICEF people.

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  20. I feel like he has no remorse because through out the war he had no one to open up to. If you don't open up to people about terrible things that have happened to you, you then start to get depressed, feel awful about yourself, and blame what has happened to you on other people.

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  21. Do you Think Ishmael will have any long term affects because of this war?

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    1. It's stated in chapter 2 on page 19 that he still has nightmares about the war to this day.

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  22. When Esther is talking to Ishmael on page 153, asking him his name and such, was this more positive or negative for Beah at the time?

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  23. Once Ishmael gets a new family I feel as if he will be more aggressive towards them because he has been at war for so long. On the bottom of page 128, he says that he feels emotion but has trouble expressing it. Once your in war, you have to be tough to get used to the awful events and he trained his mind that way and now is having a hard time to letting it go.

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