War as Portrayed in 4 Stories

In "The Land of Sad Oranges," Ghassan Kanafani explores the impact of war on a young man who has lost his own family, except for a brother, and is now a part of a refugee family fleeing war, or trying to flee war, as the wear portrayed dominates every part of reality.

One might consider the war between the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East to be one which was and continues to be fought over high principles, historical significance, cultural identity, Biblical pronouncements, and so forth. As portrayed by Kanafani, however, war has one meaning and that is found in the devastation it has on vulnerable human beings, especially children.

The boy in Kanafani's story has lost most of his family, he is a refugee, he is a part of a family whose leader does not really want him, and he is learning quickly that the way to survive and to avoid abuse is to silence his natural desires--for food, for security, for love.

Kanafani's protagonist's primary fear is

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as a refugee of war. Thiong'o deals with an adult coming home after spending time in a detention camp. One deals with war in the Middle East, the other with war in Africa. Transcending these differences, however, is the basic message that war devastates survivors both young and old, causing them to die psychologically and emotionally in order to go on living in a world horribly altered by war. Chinua Achebe, in "Civil Peace," explores the impact of war on the survivors as well, focusing on the apparent happiness of one man, Jonathan Iwegbu, who "had come out of the war with five inestimable blessings--his head, his wife Maria's head and the heads of three out of their four children" (Geak et al. 129). Achebe shows how these blessings are altered by the state of lawlessness which is so often the result of war, even of wars which are fought specifically in the name of maintaining or restoring law. By the end of the story, as in the previous two stories by Thiong'o and Kanafani, Achebe has illustrated how, once again, the survivor of war must kill a part of himself emotionally and psychologically in order to simply carry on living from day to day in a world ripped apart by war. Jonathan manages to make money by his wits and his bi
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Approximate Word count = 1663
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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