A Brief Review Of Mattru Jong

There are many parts in this memoir that stand out to me as being used to convey entertainment in this text, despite the overall violence and gruesome reality of the situations that the characters in this story endure. The biggest example of this would have to be the use of the rap cassette tapes in many situations that Ishmael could have been killed. This quote summarizes this point very well, “Mattru Jong?” he asked, and called for a young man who was from that village. The boy was brought before the chief and asked if he knew us and if he had ever heard us speak parables in the white man’s language. He knew my name, my brother’s, and those of my friends. He remembered us from performances we had done. None of us knew him, not even by his face, but we warmly smiled as if we recognized him as well. He saved our lives” (Beah 53-54). The association that Ishmael had with the music
The reason that I know this is it leaves time for the author to cover the most important parts of the story first and foremost. To get his point across in this story Ishmael had a bunch of points to cover and while he did that he reveals small details that the reader may have been wondering. It gives the reader greater detail about what Ishmael is thinking about. “The scene kept surfacing in my memory like lightning on a dark rainy night, and each time it happened, I heard a sharp cry in my head that made my spine hurt. I went inside and sat on my bed facing the wall and tried to stop thinking, but I had a severe migraine that night. I rolled my head on the cold cement floor, but it didn’t stop. I went to the shower room and put my head under the cold water, but that didn’t help either. The headache became so severe that I couldn’t walk. I began to cry out loud” (Beah 193-194). These time shifts refer to events that are traumatic for Ishmael and help him develop as a character throughout the