At one point in our lives we were all kids. larning things about life. sing new things. and understanding life’s lessons. We were all naif and knew nil about the universe around us. we were all inexperienced person to life and what it had to convey. It was non until we grew older that we began to lose our artlessness with every new experience. Turning older agencies taking duty. accepting and get the better ofing life’s adversities and understanding oneself. So as we reach adulthood we begin to inquiry when the transition from artlessness to see occurs and what causes and Markss this coming of age.
In the novel They Poured Fire on Us From The Sky. the characters and secret plan prolong the resistance of artlessness and experience and demo us how they continuously overlap and occur throughout the life-time of an person. By analysing the boy’s experiences of being refugees. their brushs with war. and their relationship and grasp for the Dinkaland. we become cognizant of the connexion between artlessness and experience and how it is portrayed and represented in the novel.
Starvation. isolationism. and confusion. are words we unwittingly associate with refugees. None of us can to the full understand and get down to associate to the ideas and emotions of refugees. Most of what we know has been through books or media where the adversity of refugee life is depicted as horrifying. desperate. and unresponsive. In They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky. one of the chief characters. Alepho depicts life as a refugee while giving us cases of experience where we are shown his loss of artlessness.
Through the text Alepho gives us a first manus history of his experience with being a refugee and how he has matured. transitioned into maturity. and through all of this has finally been stripped of his artlessness. “ The Soldiers who came to bivouac ever said. “You know. I think there will be peace. ” But although people ever hoped and prayed for peace. peace ne’er came and we lost hope” ( Deng 271 ) . Not merely does this show how through their experiences they realize peace will ne’er come but besides how they have given up on trusting for a better hereafter.
Their artlessness has been lost through every idea of hope that has ne’er been achieved. At merely a immature age Alepho and the other male childs have already experienced so much desolation. corruptness and solitariness. go forthing merely their childhood memories as a connexion to their artlessness. Not merely did being a refugee leave mental cicatrixs but it besides had a permanent impact on their physical wellbeing. “Being a refugee is something that many people can non understand. Refugee life was like being devoured by wild animate beings. We lived five of us in one house.
The small ration we received we collected together and cooked as a repast one time a twenty-four hours. Though we had an appetency there wasn’t adequate to eat as immature turning male childs with stamp castanetss and organic structure. Nutritional diseases were rampant in the cantonment. Children died from marasmas. kwashiorkor. anaemia. and beriberi. Ricketss was the worst with the immature male childs ; about every male child was bow-legged. It was difficult for male childs to travel to school with empty tummies. An empty tummy can non transport a healthy mind” ( Deng 274 ) . This depicts a more graphic image of what refugee life was like and how impacting it was to their wellness.
They became famished. and their wellness was easy deteriorating with every repast that they skipped. and every disease acquired. As a consequence. we see how at such a immature age the boys life was corrupted and how they had to see things that most people don’t experience in a life-time. Starvation. desolation. and solitariness. were the lone things we as kids saw in films or games. we could ne’er conceive of of all time sing it first manus. The male childs were stripped of their artlessness as kids. grown to be familiar with an empty tummy. separated from their household. and above all had no topographic point to truly call place.
Through each experience they faced they lost all ties to their artlessness and were forced to maturate in a universe of corruptness. and isolationism. We have all heard the word war. whether through text editions in school. or narratives passed down from our grandparents. We have all been some what introduced to the construct of war. World War I and II. Vietnam. The Civil War. and the current Middle Eastern War. are merely some of the wars we have been taught about. However. none of us have experienced the hideous emotions. and psychological hurting that comes along with being involved in war.
We all know grownups or friends who have served for our state. but what we are non familiar with are kids who have been forced into war by agencies of inhuman treatment. In the novel. the immature male childs are taken from their places and forced into war. and the life of a refugee. “ But I didn’t understand this complicated war. how it mortally devoured the land and left it so full of skeletons. The grownups talked of the war all the clip. They discussed bondage. apartheid. racism. segregation. and tribalism. They called it a spiritual war. A jehad. I heard all the words but I didn’t understand them.
I think childs feel otherwise about things than grownups do. From what I could see work forces or adult female. kids or grownups. immature or aged. rich or hapless. war was doing everyone equal” ( Deng 123 ) . This shows how the male childs are naif and guiltless to the war. and the logical thinking and intent of it. but this artlessness is shortly lost when the male childs experience decease of friends and household. life of a refugee. and the horrors of war. The male childs are guiltless in the fact that they do non understand the construct or ground for war but their experience throughout it show they have to the full made the passage from artlessness to see or childhood to adulthood.
Throughout the book we see how the boys show experience over artlessness but when it comes to understanding war. and what causes it. the boys immatureness comes through. “We said that a batch. As kids. seven or eight old ages old. we knew nil about the universe. merely that we were non in our mama’s house no more” ( Deng 123 ) . The male childs are so guiltless to the universe around them and what’s traveling on. that all they do cognize is that things have changed and they are non home any longer. At one point in the novel the male childs experienced artlessness.
They were so naif to non merely the universe. but besides to the construct of war. However. as we become more familiar with the male childs and follow them on their enterprises as refugees we can see how through their experiences their artlessness was lost. Family and friends. are something most of us take for granted. the idea of fring them is indefinable. Family and friends are to most of us. the most structured and of import relationships in our lives. Family is what helps you overcome troubles. and friends are at that place to portion laughs and construct memories with.
In some instances people have lost household members due to serious unwellness or other fortunes but really few to about none in our society have been taken off from their households and community to be refugees of war. Alepho. Benjamin and Benson have all been taken off from their household and Dinkaland. and forced to be refugees of war. “Since my roving began. there hasn’t been a twenty-four hours or dark that I do non believe back to my household. our people and lovely Dinkaland” ( Deng 3 ) . The male childs have been taken off from their place and familiar manner of life. to go refugees of the war.
The boy’s loss of artlessness is shown through every idea of household and place. They are so immature and have been taken out of their familiar manner of life to populate a life of corruptness and strangeness. Through this we see how experience has a drastic consequence on 1s artlessness. and we see through every experience the boy’s lose a touch of artlessness. “When I sometimes have incubuss about all the things that happened when our peaceable small town life turned to chaos. that feeling of non being able to travel during my induction still overcomes me” ( Deng 10 ) .
This shows Alepho’s response to the war and when it eventually arrived to their clip. The memories of that twenty-four hours still haunt him. and overpower him with fright. One can state that this is the first clip the male childs artlessness is lost and the last clip we see his entire province of artlessness. This quotation mark helps picture Alepho’s attitude and how much of a drastic affect it has on him. From their experiences. the male childs lose their naivete and get down their universe of adulthood and duties where they learn from experience. and finally do the passage from artlessness to see.
In our society today events and cultural jubilations mark the coming of age such as birthdays. Sweet Six-teens. Graduation. and the ability to vote. Today age 18 marks the beginning of maturity where childhood becomes a thing of the past and society expects you to get down to take duty and show adulthood in non merely the picks you make. but besides the actions you engage in. However as we can see in the novel They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky. Alepho. Benjamin. and Benson have all shown adulthood through their experiences and accordingly a loss of artlessness.
Through reading their narratives and analysing the text we can see how the boys experience in war. being a refugee. and their grasp for the Dinkaland has forced them into the passage from artlessness to see. at such a immature age. Ultimately we are shown that artlessness and experience are straight related. with experience we lose artlessness and with our artlessness we are more vulnerable to experiences that will determine our lives. Both of these entities continuously overlap and frequently reoccur through out the life of an person.
