Books: A Long Way Gone and The Bite of the Mango

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Recommended: war and post traumatic stress disorder

Disability is a parent in disguised that nurtures and fosters a child through sometimes crippling but always meaningful pain. One's impairment guides him or her to independently to fend for life's basic necessities. Much like a parent, it is responsible for a person's physical, emotional, and mental development. The novels The Bite of the Mango and A long Way Gone narrate two different children's traumatic experiences during the Sierra Leone's Civil War and its aftermath. In the two books, disabilities are generally perceived as negative. Nevertheless, both autobiographies illustrate how a girl's and a boy's contrasting disabilities raised them to mature at a younger age without their parent's guidance. Both The Bite of the Mango and A long Way Gone present each character's disabilities; however, Kamara's diverse disabilities made her stronger than Beah. Kamara's emotional disability from sensing gruesome murders has strengthened her to plant a positive change in the world. Both characters made a difference in society, but Kamara channeled her strength after seeing, feeling, and hearing pain. Beah physically sees deaths in his own hands from killing others but he is desensitized to murder. Beah is brought up to accept that murdering is a norm and that there is no sympathy in killing people. During the war, he does not have the emotional disability that impaired Kamara. He is unable to rationalize taking innocent lives and therefore, cannot gain moral strengths. In contrast, Kamara is not numbed to this atrocity. Her strength comes from seeing the harsh reality that ignites her desire to change society. Kamara optimistically stated, "We had an important purpose: to help raise awareness of my country's problems" (Kamara and McCl... ... middle of paper ... ... flaws in order to move on in life. This is the main reason that makes her strong. As a replacement of parenthood, disabilities in each character had given them strengths to survive on their own. Disability is a like parent in a way that children may temporarily hate it; and through the journey realize and accept it; and at the end they forgive it. Works Cited Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print. "Disability And Society." Africa News Service 12 Oct. 2006. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 11 Nov. 2013 Kamara, Mariatu, and Susan McClelland. The Bite of the Mango. Toronto: Annick Press, 2008. Print. KUMAR, ANOOP. "In Our Own Words." New Internationalist 467 (2013): 26. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.

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