Naema-Whereabouts Unknown Reflection
After reading “Naema-Whereabouts Unknown” I chose to select study question number four. It asks us if we felt the diary form is an effective way of documenting the psychological impact of historical events that we may experience. My answer to this is yes. I do believe it does. Let me expand.
We can never truly have the full experience someone feels emotionally during an event. Even if you and I were right there next to the narrator we wouldn’t. We all experience and feel things differently. The narrator put his thoughts and feelings down in his diary. The closest we will ever be to going through his exact experiences are the diary.
One moment we experienced with the narrator was early on in the story when his son asked him about the grenade. The narrator said “He had answered without a moment’s hesitation and still gazing at me with his innocent look.” (Dib pg 16). His own child said this after the narrator asked him what he would do with the grenade. We are able to experience the sadness that flooded his heart to see a small innocent child filled with such ignorance and hatred. War and hate is all he probably knows.
Line 37 of the story reads “We are prepared to die, but we have not yet learns to depart this life”. This was a very powerful line to me. At this moment I realized that the narrator was lost in life. He felt like he had nothing to life for and a death would be in vein. I can’t imagine the emptiness and loss of hope he felt during this time, spending hours searching for his wife in the middle of such a tragic time. How hard it must have been to keep the faith that his wife was out there somewhere in such a time of despair. The poor man witness countless deaths, the sound of explosion was practically white noise, children knew nothing but war. The narrator was not only looking for his wife but something to keep him going. A meaning to live.
The above reasons are just a few as to why I feel it was important for this story to be told in a diary
We can never truly have the full experience someone feels emotionally during an event. Even if you and I were right there next to the narrator we wouldn’t. We all experience and feel things differently. The narrator put his thoughts and feelings down in his diary. The closest we will ever be to going through his exact experiences are the diary.
One moment we experienced with the narrator was early on in the story when his son asked him about the grenade. The narrator said “He had answered without a moment’s hesitation and still gazing at me with his innocent look.” (Dib pg 16). His own child said this after the narrator asked him what he would do with the grenade. We are able to experience the sadness that flooded his heart to see a small innocent child filled with such ignorance and hatred. War and hate is all he probably knows.
Line 37 of the story reads “We are prepared to die, but we have not yet learns to depart this life”. This was a very powerful line to me. At this moment I realized that the narrator was lost in life. He felt like he had nothing to life for and a death would be in vein. I can’t imagine the emptiness and loss of hope he felt during this time, spending hours searching for his wife in the middle of such a tragic time. How hard it must have been to keep the faith that his wife was out there somewhere in such a time of despair. The poor man witness countless deaths, the sound of explosion was practically white noise, children knew nothing but war. The narrator was not only looking for his wife but something to keep him going. A meaning to live.
The above reasons are just a few as to why I feel it was important for this story to be told in a diary