// War Literature

I was not present in class on Tuesday, and just like the previous post, I apologize if I discuss a point that was already raised in class. I know I am a little late, but please bear with me here. My main focus of this post is from pages 123 to 201.

This section of the book focuses on S.’s life after leaving the camp, and her struggles to adjust, since it seemed as though the world was very unfamiliar to her, and that it was a dream from which she may wake up at any moment, and find herself back at the camp. There were many uncertainties for S., especially when it came to her struggle to decide whether she should start life anew and “forget” about her past, or rather to just keep it in a corner from where it never reveals itself, or whether she should continue her life by also carrying the burden of those memories. The following quotes and/or parts of the book show how S. tries to adjust to life after the camp (taking my format from the previous author’s post):

Pg. 123: “What does peace look like?”

This is one of the many questions that come into the minds of the people that leave the camp, who are uncertain about their future. They have seen war so closely, experienced the true horrors of war so strongly, that the prospect of peace is unfathomable to them. These are people who were always surrounded by war, even though S. believed that war was a being separate from her, that it could not touch her. Now, when these people have lost more than can be ever replaced, the question that comes to my mind is, will these people ever feel peace? They are asking what peace looks like because what happened to them will haunt them, because these people cannot just “move on”. War has left a permanent mark on them, whether it be physically from the beatings, emotionally because of the loss of a family member, or psychological because of the constant torment they were in in regards to whether they would ever leave the camp or not.

Rinkeby, Stockholm, March 1993: This section focuses on S. furnishing her new apartment and her giving birth. When it comes to furnishing, S. is at first confused about whether she should buy things that remind her of her life before the camp, to surround herself with memories, or to buy things that will signify a fresh start for her, without a trace of her “previous life.” S. first sees an armchair that reminds her of her grandmother, and as she begins to explore the idea further of being surrounded by memories, she is overwhelmed with how strong they are, and how painful. Her memories come back to her very vividly, so much so that it becomes unbearable for her. It may have been a bit easier for her if she had not known whether her family really was dead, because those memories would have given her hope, which may have made it a bit more bearable for her to remember them and the memories associated with them. In the end, she decides to buy things that do not bring her back to the time before the camp. I think this is because she does not want to think of how happy she used to be before circumstances brought her to this point. Once a person is put in a certain situation, it becomes more unbearable for them to cope with their circumstances when they have seen better times, and remembering those times only tends to make them weaker.

Pg. 195-201: This section focuses on S.’s desire to stay away from the child, her acceptance to it, and her acceptance to her fate. In the beginning, she hesitates so much from touching the child, or to allow herself to ever consider its mother, that she does not even feed it her milk. However, she is a mother after all, so she slowly begins to notice the child, to give it attention. She realizes that the child is not to be blamed, that the child’s fate was sealed even before it came into the world. She weighs her options, the child’s future. The fact that she is even considering how the child’s future might turn out to be is an indication that she is attached to the child whether she allows herself or not, even after putting it up for adoption. The fact that the child has a striking resemblance to S.’s sister seals the deal that she keep him. When she makes that one realization, that is when I realized that the war will stay with her always, and her memories of her life will also remain with her, no matter how much she attempts to forget either. Her acceptance of her child in the end shows that her realities will coexist, whether it be the time before the camp, during the camp, or after it. The child is a combination of her realities, since she cannot forget her family because of its physical features, cannot forget the camp because of the way it was conceived, and will continue to live with it because she is lonely in the end, after all. Eventually, the child’s conception is not what matters to her, but rather its future. With her acceptance of the child, the reader gets the sense that she has accepted and compromised with her situation, and that she is, or will be, finally at peace.