Thursday, December 6, 2012

Social Action Question #4: When do you find yourself resisting the text? What does your resistance say about you or the text?




         The story I am reading is “a long way gone” by Ishmael beah. It’s about a 12 year old boy named Ishmael beah going into war. He is a child solider that is forced to fight with the rebels and wanders land rendered by violence.

            I found myself resisting this story way too many times, that I wanted to stop. I found myself resisting when he had to fight. He said it was like a bloodbath. When the rebels first came to attack his country, he saw a family in a van, died. The girls were shot in the head, and the parents were killed by a gun going through the windshield. This is just so intense, because this is when I started to shake, and made me think that he would die since the rebels seemed so close. Also, according to the story, he saw a guy walking that had been shot in the arm, throwing up blood, and looked like he had no hope left. This is when I really resisted because it made me gag and say to myself ‘oh my god’ this is so much! How can a 12 year old boy handle this danger and disturbing sight!

            The resistance says that I can’t handle the text. I think this goes out to everyone though, because I mean if you see people throwing up blood, or people getting shot in the head, and you know rebels are in your country, what are you to do? What can you do? This is an intense situation because it makes you nervous that you can be ‘next’. I should have expected some resistance, since I did research about child soldiers.

            This book is really good so far. I think the resistance shows how bad and brutal being a child solider was, and the bad memoires and images that they had to go through. I hope as I read along good things start to happen and maybe even a change. 

4 comments:

  1. I really like your post, I like how you included lots of detail about why you were resisting the book. Do you think Ishmael Beah wanted the reader to feel some resistance? Maybe it added to the story. All in all I really like your post nice job.

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  2. Hi! I do think Ishmael Beah wanted us to feel resistance. I think he wanted us to feel the struggle that he went though as a child, and the bad memories and sights he had to see growing up.

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  3. Destini, I thought your post was really truthful and honest! I definitely agree with you, I think that if I was reading that book I would definitely resist the text as well. I think we as people and as readers resist texts when they become bloody and gory and uncomfortable. I think that sometimes when we find someone that gross or heartbreaking we tend to resist the text but we also want to find out what's going to happen next like you said. Even though we don't always want to finish reading it there is always something that makes us want to finish it even if we were resisting it before

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  4. i rally like this i like how you remembered to add mrs rears minature lesson about resisting the text and p.s. when your done with the book give it to me i want to read it

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