1.) A scene that I feel is important in Chapter 14 is when Beah and the boys are no longer scared to kill or have the guilt of killing, that feeling has all gone away. Beah has the mind track that these people are the ones that killed my family and that’s what makes him not care. Then there is also the fact that the boys do a lot of drugs to also keep their mind off the guilt of killing. Beah, page 122 “The combination of these drugs gave us a lot of energy and made us fierce. The idea of death didn’t cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water.” Beah’s mind is so set and focused on getting back at the people who killed his family and stopped him from seeing them again. That’s a big change for Beah because when he first started to kill he was dramatized and became sick to his stomach whenever he would kill someone, and now after being in the war for a while and getting adjusted to the way things go such as the same routine. They watch war movies, do drugs and then go raid another village of rebels. In this point of the book Beah really changed.
2.) How does this transformation of character change your perception of Beah?
This transformation changed my whole perception of Beah and who he is. Beah at the beginning of the story was this little boy who was scared , caring but also strong. He pushed through so much to be able to become at least a little happy, and now in the story Beah has completely changed. He isn’t scared anymore, he doesn’t care, and he has just lost all hope in becoming or finding anything that he has just become a killer. The hero at the beginning of the story isn’t the same because he has become a killer.
I agree with you that the whole transformation of Beah really changed my perception of him. He became a totally different person and has this new side to him.
ReplyDeleteHey Ashleigh.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that Beah has become an monster. I feel that we were all rooting for Beah to survive because he was only portrayed as a innocent 12 year old boy. As we continue reading we develop an understanding that Beah has to learn to kill to survive. I feel that Beah has no remorse for killing innocent people because he is bottling up all the pain and suffering he went through, and creating hatred for what the rebels did to him. For example Beah writes, “Every time I stopped shooting to change magazines and saw my two lifeless friends, I angrily point my gun into the swap and killed more people”(119). I feel that Beah has become an anti hero in the story.