Connor Yee

Mr. Greene 1
Honors English - 10
6/1/2023
Quote Response
“The lieutenant went on… every person in the R - It surprises me that the lieutenant used this
gathering”(108). as his way of keeping people from leaving the
village. While there were definitely many
who would have wanted to leave the village,
even at the risk of facing rebels, the fact that
the lieutenant spent so much time detailing is
confusing to me. As the lieutenant said, most
of the people in the village had experienced
the atrocities the lieutenant was outlining. It
seems counterintuitive to me to continue
explaining everything that he did. His speech
could have been the reason some people left
the village even, not wanting to deal with
military members constantly telling them
what would happen if people left. If the
people wanted to leave the village, what could
he really do to stop them if they already know
and have seen the risks?

“As I was putting on my new…lips shook as I
turned away”(110).
S - The army and rebels have very different
beliefs, but in the end both groups have some
similarities. The rebels go around doing
horrific and unimaginable things, burning
villages, forcing children and women to work
for them, and killing innocent people. Even
though the army isn’t killing innocent people,
there is so much manipulation, mental
degrading, and coerced labor that they really
are not a whole lot better than the rebels. Both
the army and the rebels are recruiting
children, using women as labor, and causing
plenty of trauma for everyone involved. Even
though the army might not be as gory and
violent, they still traumatize Beah and his
friends by shooting rounds into the air to scare
them. The army made everyone get rid of all
their personal belongings, whereas the rebels
had all sorts of different knick knacks and
things to give them some material worth or
value. It makes you think, is there a good side

“I searched for Josiah…we needed another
strategy”(118-119).
and a bad side to the war? Or maybe it’s just
everyone for themselves.
PQ/A - How do people process that much
trauma happening in the span of a mere
couple seconds?
Beah over his past months of traveling
witnessed some of the most atrocious and
horrific things anyone can even imagine.
From being separated from his brother, to
being minutes away from meeting his family
again only to lose them before they could
meet up, to losing friends, and witnessing
dead children, all leading to the point where
he finally has no choice and kills a person.
Everything accumulating to that moment, the
fact that Beah and his friends can continue
living their lives, not knowing what may
happen in the future, what will happen if they
continue on. I really am not sure I would be
able to function as a normal person after
dealing with everything Beah has gone
through. Not to mention, once again, Beah is
only 13. A child had to witness the death of
an even younger child and then immediately
after go on and kill a man. The series of
events that had to lead up to this, for Beah to
survive, and then continue to survive
afterwards is appalling. No normal child
would be able to continue on living even a
semi-normal life after experiencing something
like this, and yet Beah presses on at the age of
13. If these events happened to me, the best
case scenario is I go absolutely insane and end
up being completely emotionless and numb. I
have nothing but respect and adoration and
empathy for everyone that has to experience
anything like described in the entirety of A
Long Way Gone.