Beasts (p.52-74) Scribe

The main focus of the discussion today was the impact of war. Dylan, Jack and I all made a list of what happened as a result of the fighting and violence in the village. We all agreed that death, loss of belongings, and loss of family and friends were all represented in this part of the novel. There was obviously death due to the radical combatants storming the villages. Agu's father and his fellow villagers were all killed from the army soldiers. Loss of belongings was a crucial part of war. Agu had to leave everything behind. There was not a choice; either get killed and stay put, or run and try to stay alive. Lastly we talked about the loss of family and friends. Agu lost his mother and sister from their escape, and he lost his friend Dike. At such a young age, Agu has gone through so much and I am very surprised of how well he is handling the situation. 

There was one main debate within the group. The debate was over Agu and if he was a man or not. Now I believe (and still do) that Agu is not a man. I do not know his specific age, but he is definitely too young to be a man. A man has to be physically and mentally capable to handle difficult tasks. Even though Agu is dealing with situation pretty well, I still feel that in order to be a man, you have to lead a group and show that you are brave in front of a group of followers. Jack said that he was because of what he had been through. Losing friends and family, seeing people die in front of his eyes was somewhat convincing, but I stayed with my own opinion; Agu is not a man until he is a proven leader.

The conversation stalled after the mentally draining debate. It was started again when Jack told the group to look at page 72 and read the quotation, "...if you are living men you are already becoming devil like them." We dissected the quotation and agreed that this had happened to Agu in the previous chapters. When the radical fighters found Agu, they were going to kill him, but he decided to join the army and become a soldier. By staying alive, he became the devil or parts of his soul were devil-like. 

One question that was brought up was are the same people that Agu is fighting with the same people that killed the villagers and his dad. The group was not sure, but we came to the conclusion that it was not because we figured that Agu would remember these fighters.