Sunday, February 14, 2016

Matthew Rimmer English 1109 10:30-12:30 Journal 5: Chapter 17 (Trust) Summary

>Summary
In this chapter the nurse Esther tries to create a connection to Ishmael Beah as he visits the compound's infirmary more often. Alhaji jokes with Beah by saying that the nurse likes him. Beah disagrees with him but wonders what her intentions are. Esther tells Beah that she wants to be his friend but only if he wants her to be. After some time of coming and going to the infirmary she gives him a cassette player along with some rap tapes as a gift. One day while Beah is listening to his tapes he tells Esther how he acquired the wounds on his legs and foot hoping to scare her away. However, this fails and she tells him none of what happened is his fault, which angers him. Esther and a field-worker Leslie takes Beah along with Alhaji to the city for a check up. Esther buys a jersey for Alhaji while Leslie buys some tapes for Beah. Beah then learns the lyrics of the songs so he can sing them with Esther. During the night Beah has a horrible nightmare about the war and his family so the next day he goes to Esther to talk about it. Once again she tells him it is not his fault but this time he takes it to heart and finally believes this. One night Beah is walking with Esther while observing the moon and talking about what they see in the moon. Beah recalls a story his grandmother tells him about how the moon will speak to anyone who will listen and he desperately wishes that the moon would talk to him.

>Analysis
I would say the biggest theme in this chapter would be trust. At the beginning Beah does not trust Esther even though she shows him a bit of trust. As time goes in he realizes that what happened to him was not is fault thanks to Esther. He begins to open up to Esther and decides to trust her to an extent. He tells her about his times in the war and the nightmares he has. Ishmael had built a wall of distrust around himself deciding not to trust anyone. However, as he is shown trust he slowly begins to tear down his wall and trusts back. He even accepts Esther as his temporary sister. This just goes to show that no matter what happens there will always be someone that you can trust.

>Connection To Life
I can personally relate to Ishmael Beah when it comes to hardly or not even trusting someone. However, my experiences with trusting cannot even begin to be measured up against Beah's. Throughout my entire school years I would always end up having my trust in people destroyed. I would "make" friends but then after awhile they would stab me in the back. They became the ones who would always ridicule me and try to put me down. This went on all the way until I graduated. So as a result I built a wall of distrust around me, not letting anyone get close to me. However, I would open myself up to people who proved that they truly wanted to be my friends and not my enemies. Whenever I made true friends I learned that not everyone is out to get you and that there are people that you truly can trust. Now a days it feels like there is no more trust in the world.  I mean pretty much everyone will question the intentions and motives of everyone else. I believe that even though it may take time we as people should try to better trust others.

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