The Face of War Often Unseen

By -

 Zlata's Diary A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo is the captivating recount of the war in Bosnia from a child's point of view. Over the course of two years, a girl named Zlata held a diary recounting the horror she experienced as her country fall to pieces during war. The book begins like any diary of a young girl: friends, hobbies, interests, and social gatherings. The beginning to this novel makes the remainder of the content incredibly harrowing. The book begins to shift as she has to begin to document the horrors of war. Zlata spends much of the book asking for peace and just asking the question: why? "Why? I keep asking myself why? We haven't done anything. We're innocent. But helpless!" (Filipovic 188) Zlata is in the position for the entirety of the novel to bear the brunt of this confusing time. She is a young preteen girl who went from making plans with her friends and receiving music lessons to becoming someone who has to consistently fight for their life. This is the unseen face of war. Zlata manages to hold onto a part of her innocence and a part of her positivity. "Post nubia, phoebus, which is Latin, Mimmy, and it means 'After the clouds comes the sun." (Filipovic 166) This is the innocence only a child could hold on to. Her positivity becomes a refreshing break in the novel as everything at that point is so shrouded in concern and woe. Zlata is an example of how the children and the people become collateral for a war. The same thing was seen in Anne Frank's diary, the children and their families had to live and learn how to survive in these war torn landscapes. They are forced to bear the trauma of having to fight for your life and watch the people you love and the people that you live with die from means they can't even control. The copy of my novel also came with a set of pictures, and the opportunity to see what she looked like and to see her mother and her group of friends prior to the war really added that punch to the novel.

Comments

  1. A'Keriah PraylowNovember 10, 2020 at 10:11 AM

    I appreciate the comparison between Zlata and Anne Frank. Reading the experiences of children going through war increases empathy in readers. Many of us are unfamiliar with living through a war, so reading the accounts of Zlata has me asking the same question of why? We rarely look at how war between politicians actually effects innocent citizens and they lives.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Todd WhittakerNovember 11, 2020 at 4:20 PM

    I appreciate your emphasis on the shift in the novel once the war begins while acknowledging Zlata's positive attitude. I think the positivity and hope is what Anne and Zlata have most in common.

    I, too, noticed Zlata's questioning. She questions Mimmy as if her journal will have answers. I think her questioning is a way to remain positive. Rather than complain and complain and complain, she asks rhetorical questions. She has thoroughly thought about the war (as would anyone living it) and is just in disbelief.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe...
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm...
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C...
Read more