Cause Of 'Emotional Trauma In Ishmael's'

Ishmael becomes emotionally traumatized due to the overwhelming situations he goes through on a daily basis. An example of this can be found in chapter six. After the boys travel to Kamator, they are welcomed by Gibirlla’s (a boy traveling with Ishmael) aunt. She offers the boys food and a place to sleep in exchange for acting as the village’s watchmen. The boys spend about a month in that village, and cling onto the hope that the war is over. Then, as if on cue, the rebels burn the village to the ground; leaving everything lifeless and the boys without a place to call home. To make matters worse, during the attack, Ishmael lost someone who he loves and cares for, someone who took care of him; it became “the last time [he] saw Junior, [his]
In chapter 11, Ishmael and his friends start to approach the village in which they were told their families are living in. They encounter a banana farmer whom Ishmael knows named Gasemu. Gasemu leads the boys to the village, but they hear gunshots, people screaming, and dogs barking. They all go to the nearest bushes to hide. They watch the horror until the gunshots stop. Then, Ishmael runs to the village an starts to look for his family. He sees the village in flames, and burned bodies that were barely recognizable. Gasemu shows Ishmael the hut in which Ishmael’s family was staying in. Ishmael enters but only sees “heaps of ashes; no solid form of a body” inside the hut (Beah 95). Ishmael’s big hope is to be reunited with his family. Once that's taken away, it's tough for Ishmael to start hoping about anything else again and his emotions take control of him. After discovering what his family’ fate had been, Ishmael screamed at the top of his lungs and began to cry as loudly as he could, punching and kicking the walls of the hut with all his might. His emotions overwhelmed him so much that he attacked Gasemu and blamed him for what happened to his family. Discovering dead family members would be traumatizing for any child his