Girl At War
In 2011, the average child with both biological parents living and well tested 30 out 36 for life satisfaction. In simpler terms, 13,469 kids took a test and the ones who had both living parents got an 83% on how happy they were with their life. That means that more than half of the average child population is content or happy with their current life status. In the books we have read in class, each author attempts to search for sympathy in the reader to make the novel they’ve written something readers appreciate. Sara Nović, author of Girl at War, creates more of a sympathy-searching plot than Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief, by using characterization and emphasis on tragedy.
At age 9 or 10 it’s pretty tough to be unhappy with the endless …show more content…
friends, a house, a family, and no responsibilities. That is unless your country is at war or you live in an orphanage with one arm and zero parents. Ana Juric is a 10-year-old child growing up in Croatia, right in the center of the Serbian-Croatian War in 1991. She is positive, outgoing, and unaware of the intensity of the war surrounding her and her family. Ren, a 12-year-old orphan, grows up in a monastery orphanage called St. Anthony’s with only one and a half arms and zero parents. He is later adopted by Benjamin Nab, a liar and con-artist and also his brother…oh wait no his dad?! If either of these characters ended up taking that test, they would most likely not receive an 83% or anywhere near it on how happy their lives were. Ren spent 10 years in an orphanage called St. Anthony’s and then abruptly had a change of scenery when he was adopted by Benjamin Nab. Nab claimed to be Ren’s brother and later his father! That’s not the utmost typical childhood. Ren is favorably upset in his environment. When Nab comes to St. Anthony’s, the children line up similar to how slaves did when being sold. As Benjamin walks down the line “Ren wanted to say that he could be any age, that he could make himself into anything the man wanted…” because of the eager desire the boys had to abandon the orphan life they had been placed into without their responsibility (Tinti 8). Ren’s surroundings at the orphanage have taken a toll on his personality and shaped him to become a chameleon. He wants to do whatever he can to leave the place he’s called a home for the last 10 years.
The one thing he isn’t aware of is that Nab is taking him into a different life choice that he may or may not agree with. As the plot progresses, Ren looks over the newly found city called North Umbrage and realizes “both the town and his own past seem…less frightening” and “Everything [is] better” (Tinti 199). Oddly enough, Ren comes to adopt a liking to the new scenery of his life. He has changed as a person and established a unique personality and left the naïve and sheltered one he had beforehand. In the end, Ren has developed some life lessons through some original stories, but his story still lacks the sympathy that readers search for to feel in a story like this one. Girl at War is written in first person. The point of view it is told from allows the reader to only know what the narrator is experiencing. Ana’s point of view is a powerful one and it creates a view into a child soldier’s life. The reader learns exactly what it felt like in the Serbian-Croatian war as a 10-year-old girl. Nović develops Ana’s character throughout the novel with the change from past to present points in her life. Ana’s character begins as a young girl in Croatia then later switches to a college student and so on. Her first perception of the war is when she runs to cigarettes for Petar, her godfather, and “Mr. Petrović” asks her to “pick Serbian or Croatian cigarettes” (Nović 6). In the end, she doesn’t know the answer and isn’t able to get cigarettes. She isn’t aware of what is going on and neither are we because the reader is only aware of her thoughts. Later one, one of the most powerful scenes occurs and it only has the influence on the reader because it is told from Ana’s point of view. As soldier’s walk around killing people, Ana’s father explains to her how she will survive. She follows his direction and waits until the soldiers come to her father then “held [her] breath and fell” (89). The scene goes through Ana’s thoughts as she lays in a ditch with hundreds of dead innocent people and next to her newly murdered parents. Because the reader knows how she felt at that time, it is easier to understand her character’s development and change of persona throughout the novel.
When she goes to revisit her home after moving to America, she steps foot off the plane into Croatia and spends the “first minutes on the ground waiting for something to blow up” because of how she is so used to a war environment in her home (Nović 173). Ana’s only memories of her home country were in war because of how young she was while living there. The impact of her point of view shows the reader what it is like to be someone who grew up in a war zone. After she becomes finds her way to Luka, she goes out of her comfort zone to explore her past. She sees the area where her parents were brutally murdered and the village where she went for refuge. As she and Luka lay in the “safe house” she looks “around the room…the shell marks in the walls” and to her, it feels “like a home” (316).
The way Ana views the run down building filled with guns, shells, and bullet holes is as a comfort or safe place. With the novel ending here, it shows the reader that Ana has finally come full circle and ended where she ultimately began her life story. Ana is a child of war and always will be. The fact that Nović places this scene to end the novel pulls on the reader’s heart strings because it leaves them feeling guilt and sorrow for Ana because she feels at home some where that holds corrupt memories of war. The use of characterization here shows that at the beginning of the novel Ana is a young innocent girl and by the end, she has experienced watching her parents die and fighting in a war at age 10. Told from Ana’s point of view helps the reader to make the full circle with her and feel more toward her character than they do for Ren in The Good Thief.
In The Good Thief, family is portrayed in multiple ways.
The different family structures and relationships are essential to the story because they help to tell the story of Ren’s character and the change of scenery. At the beginning of the story, Ren’s closest thing to family would be his friends. As he goes through the panic of being judged in a line he thinks that these are “his only friends, and he did not want to lose them” (Tinti 8). The friends that Ren has at the orphanage are essentially his true family in the novel because once he leaves them he says that what he wants most in the world is “a family” and later on they find their way back to Ren (53). Of course, Ren is with his biological family or one of the members, his father. Even though Ren is with someone related to him, he doesn’t consider Benjamin family because he is unreliable and only leaves him once things don’t go his way. Ren is left with the people that are truly the most family he will ever have, Brom, Itchy, and Mrs. …show more content…
Sands.
Ren’s lack of family does give the reader a sense of sympathy toward his character along with the fact that he has no arm. The story’s point of view is third-person omniscient therefore we only know what Tinti chooses for us to know. The lack of Ren’s opinions and thoughts are limited to Tinti’s share of it. Because the reader isn’t aware of all his thoughts, it makes the story have a lack of detail or emotion for the character. The absence of emotion does not give the audience much to sympathize for.
The war in Girl at War truly affects Ana’s childhood along with her best friend, Luka’s.
Rahela was an infant at the time of the war and did not experience the same things that Ana did. For example, when the Croatian really started going, the police put sandbags up to block the city off. Ana and her friends climbed it because it was “so tall and alluring it might as well have been a jungle gym” and they made it their new playground (Nović 50). Once the war amplified, Rahela was sent to America through MediMission. After Ana’s parents were killed, Petar sent her to America to be joined with her newly renamed sister, Rachel. She had new American parents named “Jack and Laura” and she would call them that despite Rachel referring to them as “Mommy and Daddy in her high-pitched toddler voice” (124). Rachel had no memories of her parents because she was merely an infant when she was under their care. Ana, however, experienced 10 of her major developing years with them and watched them die. Rachel lacked an experience of the war and her character stayed in the same baby state that Ana originally viewed her
in.
The difference in Ana and Rachel’s experience helped to show the sizeable disturbance it had on Ana’s personality and her life. Rachel spent her first 10 years in the classic 2 parent American home and most likely would’ve tested in that 83% of happy children. On the other hand, Ana suffered from traumatizing experiences that she will undoubtedly never forget. Her “normal” childhood day was spent in school and probably in a war bunker at some point and ended with playing on sandbags blocking the city off. She didn’t have the chance to spend her days playing on a playground and laughing without having it interrupted by war sirens and over head pilot bombers.
The ultimate difference between Ana and Ren is that Ana’s story held true up close and personal details about her story. Ren’s was told without the details of emotions and opinions that he would tell the audience. Ana’s story also held a comparison story in itself. Rachel’s story helped the reader compare what Ana’s life could’ve been like versus what it was. Ren’s story only showed the reader what he was experiencing. The choices he made and the situations he was in were the only ones given. The reader was never given the choice to look at another character in the book and say that Ren could’ve been like them. Ren could’ve been like Brom and Itchy who ended up in the same place or like Benjamin who lied his way through life and left his son for the second time. Ultimately, Ren had one life and that is all. That life was viewed through a selective lens with a lack of detailed emotion and opinion. The character development and emphasis on tragedy in Ana’s life helped the reader to find the sympathy they were sincerely searching for.
At age 9 or 10 it’s pretty tough to be unhappy with the endless …show more content…
friends, a house, a family, and no responsibilities. That is unless your country is at war or you live in an orphanage with one arm and zero parents. Ana Juric is a 10-year-old child growing up in Croatia, right in the center of the Serbian-Croatian War in 1991. She is positive, outgoing, and unaware of the intensity of the war surrounding her and her family. Ren, a 12-year-old orphan, grows up in a monastery orphanage called St. Anthony’s with only one and a half arms and zero parents. He is later adopted by Benjamin Nab, a liar and con-artist and also his brother…oh wait no his dad?! If either of these characters ended up taking that test, they would most likely not receive an 83% or anywhere near it on how happy their lives were. Ren spent 10 years in an orphanage called St. Anthony’s and then abruptly had a change of scenery when he was adopted by Benjamin Nab. Nab claimed to be Ren’s brother and later his father! That’s not the utmost typical childhood. Ren is favorably upset in his environment. When Nab comes to St. Anthony’s, the children line up similar to how slaves did when being sold. As Benjamin walks down the line “Ren wanted to say that he could be any age, that he could make himself into anything the man wanted…” because of the eager desire the boys had to abandon the orphan life they had been placed into without their responsibility (Tinti 8). Ren’s surroundings at the orphanage have taken a toll on his personality and shaped him to become a chameleon. He wants to do whatever he can to leave the place he’s called a home for the last 10 years.
The one thing he isn’t aware of is that Nab is taking him into a different life choice that he may or may not agree with. As the plot progresses, Ren looks over the newly found city called North Umbrage and realizes “both the town and his own past seem…less frightening” and “Everything [is] better” (Tinti 199). Oddly enough, Ren comes to adopt a liking to the new scenery of his life. He has changed as a person and established a unique personality and left the naïve and sheltered one he had beforehand. In the end, Ren has developed some life lessons through some original stories, but his story still lacks the sympathy that readers search for to feel in a story like this one. Girl at War is written in first person. The point of view it is told from allows the reader to only know what the narrator is experiencing. Ana’s point of view is a powerful one and it creates a view into a child soldier’s life. The reader learns exactly what it felt like in the Serbian-Croatian war as a 10-year-old girl. Nović develops Ana’s character throughout the novel with the change from past to present points in her life. Ana’s character begins as a young girl in Croatia then later switches to a college student and so on. Her first perception of the war is when she runs to cigarettes for Petar, her godfather, and “Mr. Petrović” asks her to “pick Serbian or Croatian cigarettes” (Nović 6). In the end, she doesn’t know the answer and isn’t able to get cigarettes. She isn’t aware of what is going on and neither are we because the reader is only aware of her thoughts. Later one, one of the most powerful scenes occurs and it only has the influence on the reader because it is told from Ana’s point of view. As soldier’s walk around killing people, Ana’s father explains to her how she will survive. She follows his direction and waits until the soldiers come to her father then “held [her] breath and fell” (89). The scene goes through Ana’s thoughts as she lays in a ditch with hundreds of dead innocent people and next to her newly murdered parents. Because the reader knows how she felt at that time, it is easier to understand her character’s development and change of persona throughout the novel.
When she goes to revisit her home after moving to America, she steps foot off the plane into Croatia and spends the “first minutes on the ground waiting for something to blow up” because of how she is so used to a war environment in her home (Nović 173). Ana’s only memories of her home country were in war because of how young she was while living there. The impact of her point of view shows the reader what it is like to be someone who grew up in a war zone. After she becomes finds her way to Luka, she goes out of her comfort zone to explore her past. She sees the area where her parents were brutally murdered and the village where she went for refuge. As she and Luka lay in the “safe house” she looks “around the room…the shell marks in the walls” and to her, it feels “like a home” (316).
The way Ana views the run down building filled with guns, shells, and bullet holes is as a comfort or safe place. With the novel ending here, it shows the reader that Ana has finally come full circle and ended where she ultimately began her life story. Ana is a child of war and always will be. The fact that Nović places this scene to end the novel pulls on the reader’s heart strings because it leaves them feeling guilt and sorrow for Ana because she feels at home some where that holds corrupt memories of war. The use of characterization here shows that at the beginning of the novel Ana is a young innocent girl and by the end, she has experienced watching her parents die and fighting in a war at age 10. Told from Ana’s point of view helps the reader to make the full circle with her and feel more toward her character than they do for Ren in The Good Thief.
In The Good Thief, family is portrayed in multiple ways.
The different family structures and relationships are essential to the story because they help to tell the story of Ren’s character and the change of scenery. At the beginning of the story, Ren’s closest thing to family would be his friends. As he goes through the panic of being judged in a line he thinks that these are “his only friends, and he did not want to lose them” (Tinti 8). The friends that Ren has at the orphanage are essentially his true family in the novel because once he leaves them he says that what he wants most in the world is “a family” and later on they find their way back to Ren (53). Of course, Ren is with his biological family or one of the members, his father. Even though Ren is with someone related to him, he doesn’t consider Benjamin family because he is unreliable and only leaves him once things don’t go his way. Ren is left with the people that are truly the most family he will ever have, Brom, Itchy, and Mrs. …show more content…
Sands.
Ren’s lack of family does give the reader a sense of sympathy toward his character along with the fact that he has no arm. The story’s point of view is third-person omniscient therefore we only know what Tinti chooses for us to know. The lack of Ren’s opinions and thoughts are limited to Tinti’s share of it. Because the reader isn’t aware of all his thoughts, it makes the story have a lack of detail or emotion for the character. The absence of emotion does not give the audience much to sympathize for.
The war in Girl at War truly affects Ana’s childhood along with her best friend, Luka’s.
Rahela was an infant at the time of the war and did not experience the same things that Ana did. For example, when the Croatian really started going, the police put sandbags up to block the city off. Ana and her friends climbed it because it was “so tall and alluring it might as well have been a jungle gym” and they made it their new playground (Nović 50). Once the war amplified, Rahela was sent to America through MediMission. After Ana’s parents were killed, Petar sent her to America to be joined with her newly renamed sister, Rachel. She had new American parents named “Jack and Laura” and she would call them that despite Rachel referring to them as “Mommy and Daddy in her high-pitched toddler voice” (124). Rachel had no memories of her parents because she was merely an infant when she was under their care. Ana, however, experienced 10 of her major developing years with them and watched them die. Rachel lacked an experience of the war and her character stayed in the same baby state that Ana originally viewed her
in.
The difference in Ana and Rachel’s experience helped to show the sizeable disturbance it had on Ana’s personality and her life. Rachel spent her first 10 years in the classic 2 parent American home and most likely would’ve tested in that 83% of happy children. On the other hand, Ana suffered from traumatizing experiences that she will undoubtedly never forget. Her “normal” childhood day was spent in school and probably in a war bunker at some point and ended with playing on sandbags blocking the city off. She didn’t have the chance to spend her days playing on a playground and laughing without having it interrupted by war sirens and over head pilot bombers.
The ultimate difference between Ana and Ren is that Ana’s story held true up close and personal details about her story. Ren’s was told without the details of emotions and opinions that he would tell the audience. Ana’s story also held a comparison story in itself. Rachel’s story helped the reader compare what Ana’s life could’ve been like versus what it was. Ren’s story only showed the reader what he was experiencing. The choices he made and the situations he was in were the only ones given. The reader was never given the choice to look at another character in the book and say that Ren could’ve been like them. Ren could’ve been like Brom and Itchy who ended up in the same place or like Benjamin who lied his way through life and left his son for the second time. Ultimately, Ren had one life and that is all. That life was viewed through a selective lens with a lack of detailed emotion and opinion. The character development and emphasis on tragedy in Ana’s life helped the reader to find the sympathy they were sincerely searching for.