Character Analysis: A Long Way Gone

Uncle Tommy is Ishmael's father's brother. He is a carpenter in Freetown that has difficulties when it comes to raising his children and also the children that have relatives who can't take care of them. He is an extremely kind and generous man. Uncle Tommy loves to laugh and he also enjoys helping others whenever he can. Uncle Tommy eventually learns about what Ishmael's fate will be in the rehabilitation center. He decides that he needs to go see his nephew immediately. Being the caring person that he is, he offers Ishmael a home because he embraces him. Uncle Tommy continues to visit Ishmael every weekend. He takes Ishmael for walks and during these walks he shares many stories with him about his own childhood that he shared with Ishmael's father. Ishmael soon is ready to leave the center that he had been in. His Uncle Tommy takes him in into his home and treats him as if Ishmael is how own biological son. Uncle Tommy is very important to Ishmael in his life. His devotion and love provides Ishmael a home to have a successful future. Some of the other boys at the center were turned away by their families for one reason or another. These boys more often than not decided to become soldiers again and return to the army because the army is the only "family" that they know. Uncle Tommy manages to keep Ishmael out of this situation. If it weren't for Ishmael's uncle who knows where he would've ended up.

Compare/Contrast: A Long Way Gone

In the book A Long Way Gone the author Ishmael Beah chooses to start his novel off in the first chapter by using the method of comparing and contrasting.  This method is used to demonstrate Ishmael's concept of war before his village is attacked to his confusion and fear when he has to deal with the reality of the civil war taking place once it invades his home. There were many refugees that came to his village that were hungry and exhausted. However it was their tormented minds that he noticed appeared the most damaged part of them. It all seemed to be a foreign language that he was not the least bit familiar with. On page 6 the book states, "My imagination at ten years old didn't have the capacity to grasp what had taken away the happiness of the refugees." Ishmael said this because even if he and his friends had been told the truth of how the war would affect them once it hit their home, they would've refused to believe it because they couldn't wrap their heads around the thought of it being real. At their age they simply didn't have the knowledge to imagine the horrors. This comparison and contrast is important because it establishes the child Ishmael was before he was kidnappped to the soldier he is going to become later. Ishmael's village used to be an isolated and peaceful place. He recalled his childhood before the war fondly. His loss of his innocence is obvious. He remember's how kind his grandmother was and advice she gave before the war. He's comforted by her words still.

Synthesis: Saint Anything

I need something new to happen that I can base my life upon.

Something never ending that stays with me on and on.

Months pass by and everything is the same.

All of my good days drift into hard ones filled with dismay.

I tell myself tomorrow is the day.

But tomorrow comes then before I can change it goes away.

My desire to become myself grows more and more.

So close but so far, I wonder what I have in store.

The life I crave is getting closer each day.

All I've ever wanted is to be seen.

Not as a shadow but as me.

I need to find something to live for.

I can't keep being this small invisible person anymore.

I've been basing my life off of what other people think.

I wish I could redo my brother's trouble and make the problems shrink.

I'm fighting to become who I am and who I want to be.

Soon enough the fight will be worth it when I am free.

Free from the strict plain life I began to live as a young child.

Before the trouble started everything was just a game and life was very mild.

Times kept on changing and now nothing seems fair.

Sometimes it really seems like nobody cares.

It feels like nobody pays attention to what is best for me.

No one cares about what I think about the way some things should be.

I'm becoming my own person with the help of new friends.

But in my house with my family, I am on my own.

In my home it's as if my potential will never be known.

I think about so many things that I cannot say, things I have to keep in.

The guilty feeling eats away at me which makes my thoughts deepen.

I know soon I will push through.

To become who I am and what I'm meant to be as long as I stay true.

Truw to myself because I am not my brother.

I am making everybody look at me for me.

Now everyone can finally see.

My name is not Peyton, I am just Sydney.

Evaluation: Saint Anything

The most important character to this story is Layla Chatham. Sydney meets Layla and her life instantly becomes better. Layla is the first person who really sees Sydney for herself, not just her brother's shadow. The first time Sydney ever saw Layla was when he brother was in court. Sydney had come out of the bathroom upset about what was going on and when she looked up a stranger was staring back into her eyes silently asking her if she was okay. It was a small gesture but it was filled with meaning to her because she had always been invisible to the rest of the world including her own family. A stranger had noticed her and even if it was only for a split second, she didn't feel invisible for the first time since she was a kid. Sydney transfers schools to a public school because she wants a new start to her life where nobody knows anything about her and her past. Almost as if by some strange miracle she sees the stranger she had seen a while ago at court that day and ends up becoming best friends with her. Layla was dropped into her life like a present. Layla brings Sydney out of her comfort zone. When they talk for some reason whenever Sydney looks into Layla’s eyes she is completely honest with what is on her mind. Only the truth is told when they are talking about something serious. Sydney doesn't give Layla the usual short automatic responses that she gives everybody else to avoid getting close with anybody. She talks to Layla about everything that's been eating away at her. She tells Layla about her family history and how she takes on the guilt of what Peyton did to her family and to another family. She talks about how her parents only focus on her brother. Layla never judges Sydney no matter what she is being told; she just gives her honest real advice. She's a true friend which is exactly what Sydney needs when she and Layla meet. Sydney starts spending more and more time at the Chatham household. Layla is the reason why Sydney eventually stands up to her parents, because she feels like for the first time she has people in her life who really care about her wellbeing. Layla opens up Sydney’s eyes to look at things a little differently. They also have more things in common than Sydney would have guessed so it makes it easier for Layla to relate to Sydney. All of Sydney’s friends from her old school had perfect lives and although they tried to understand Sydney always felt as if they never truly got it. If Layla didn't exist as a character the whole story would be different. Sydney never would've become her own person which she had been trying so hard to do for such a long time. She would still be walking around as the ghost of Peyton allowing her parents to make her own needs seem unimportant in the greater scheme of everything going on. Layla is the reason why Sydney stops being a wallflower. She's is by far the most important character to the overall plot of this novel because she made the biggest impact.

Analysis: Saint Anything

In the novel Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen the main character Sydney feels as though she is always her brother's shadow, she is invisible to everyone even her own family. Her brother Peyton has always been the center of attention and he quickly became a trouble maker as he started high school. One night after Peyton began to get his life together and stop getting into trouble, he slipped up and hit a person while drunk driving and went to prison for it. Sydney's mother still treats Peyton as if he did nothing wrong and puts Sydney on the back burner. At court before Peyton receives his sentence Sydney sees a girl who looks at her asking with her eyes if she is okay, that is the first time in a long time that Sydney feels somebody has truly seen her for herself, not as a piece of her brother. Sydney transfers schools and quickly becomes friends with a girl named Layla Chatham who she later discovers was the girl she saw at the courthouse. Sydney falls into place with the Chatham family and their friends easily as if she was apart of their life from the beginning. They see her for who she is and help her become who she wants to be. A big theme in this book is that it takes courage to become who you really are. When Sydney first meets Layla she’s not used to people caring about what goes on in her life. Layla asks direct questions about how Sydney is and what is bothering her. Normally Sydney would give a simple answer to anyone else asking this question and be on her way but with Layla it was different. For some reason she felt comfortable enough to share her history and tell her about Peyton and how she feels like her whole life revolves around him even when he’s locked away at prison. This was Sydney’s first step in becoming the person she is at the end of the novel. It was never easy for her to share that her brother had left a kid paralyzed or to share anything about her personal life. It took courage for her to step out of her comfort zone and be completely honest about what was on her mind. The whole Chatham family helps Sydney to tame the demons of her past. They make her feel important. They make her feel as if she matters. Mrs. Chatham always asks Sydney to sit down and talk with her whenever Sydney is around. She would ask Sydney a question to break the ice then would let Sydney talk away about what was currently bothering her. Mrs. Chatham would listen then at the end give Sydney advice. This helped because Sydney was finally beginning to see that she is her own person. There are people out in the world that care about her without seeing her as Peyton’s little sister. She realized that she now had her own friends who wanted her to know that she is loved. Layla eventually gets a boyfriend who she spends a large portion of her time with. This leaves Sydney to spend a lot of time with Mac Chatham who is Layla’s brother. He also makes sure that Sydney can share what is on her mind with him. He makes her feel better about anything she feels is going wrong in her life. Mac becomes a person who she is very grateful for, she now knows for sure that she doesn’t have to carry around the burden of what her brother did when she is with the Chatham family. Towards the end of the book Sydney has tried to make it clear to her parents several times that she is not the same person who Peyton is. She had never once disobeyed her parents, she was always trying to be the perfect kid to take away some of their stress. When Mac’s band gets the opportunity to get a record deal Sydney asks her mom if they can use the half built studio that is in their basement to record a demo. At first her mother says yes because the studio was meant for Peyton and she doesn’t want it to go to waste but a few days later when Sydney mentions how her friends will be using it her mom says absolutely not. Sydney puts up a fight which she never has done before. Sydney’s parents were supposed to be away that weekend to visit Peyton in jail. Sydney goes against her parents and has her friends over anyway. Her brother’s friend Ames who is always present in her house making her uncomfortable was going to be staying with her that weekend but he wasn’t supposed to arrive home until ten that night. He walks in the house to find Sydney and her friends and while he doesn’t approve he doesn’t make them leave. Towards the end of the night Sydney is stressed out. Layla takes a sip of her boyfriend’s vodka then hands it to Sydney who also takes her first and only sip. Sydney’s mom happens to walk in at that exact moment because Peyton had told her he did not want to see her so her parents returned home. Sydney tries to explain that it’s not what it looks like but her mom is furious and puts Sydney on lock down. She no longer has time to see any of her friends because her mother enrolls her in a program for SAT testing that runs during lunch at school and after school. After several weeks of her life being like this and good behavior she decides to take a chance and ask if she can go to the showcase for Mac’s band to see them perform live. Her mom says no. She watches them play through a phone screen that one of her other friends Irv holds up for her. That night as Mac’s band is waiting to see if they would win, she gets a text from him saying his mom is in the hospital and it’s bad this time. She knows that her mom will not let her leave in the middle of the night to go to the hospital if she wouldn’t even let her go to Mac’s showcase. She wants to be there for the people who are always there for her so she decides to leave her mom a note explaining where she was going and head off to the hospital. Ames at this point had moved in with Sydney and her family because he got evicted. Just as Sydney's hand is on the doorknob Ames appears and grabs her saying her parents wouldn't like her leaving. He forces himself on her and she knows that all the creep vibes she had gotten from him were not just in her head. She tries to fight him off and he puts her hands over her head. She screams and before she knows it his lips are on her lips. Then suddenly he's ripped off of her and she falls down the garage stairs looking up to see her dad grabbing Ames by his neck asking what he was doing. She knows her mom will hear the commotion and be down the steps in seconds. She gets in her car and drives off to the hospital to see Mrs. Chatham. She is there for several hours when she begins to think it's weird that her mom hasn't showed up or contacted her. She goes to make a call outside of the room and finds her mom sitting there. After that night Sydney became her own person. Her family finally saw her for who she had become and realized that she's not the same person that Peyton is. After that night her mom decided to put Sydney in therapy because of what had happened with Ames. She would attend therapy sessions alone and therapy sessions with her parents. She was allowed to see her friends again. It was a rough journey but she finally became the person she wanted to be all along. She no longer was invisible to anyone, she was just Sydney and that's it. That is why needing courage to become who you are is such an apparent theme in this novel.