Author's Note: There are a lot of weird things going on in this paper (bolded quotes, underlined author name, etc). Just ignore it. It's due to the instructor's requirements. I just haven't been bothered to go and change it all into a normal presentation.
Introduction
Slave by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis is about Nazer's experience of being kidnapped from her home in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan by the Mujahedin; they are better known as the Arab Raiders. Once the raiders took Nazer, she became a slave. Nazer says, "This is how my wonderful, happy childhood ended and how my life as a slave began" (Nazer and Lewis 5). What has Nazer's childhood taught her? This critical review will discuss the prologue and the first two chapters of this book, which covers Nazer's childhood.
Background
Sudan is a large country in Africa that ails from a lot of violence and suffering such as rape, poverty, war, raids by the Arabs, disease, and slavery. Sudan's troubles began when they gained independence from Britain in 1956. Even during times of peace, there is a great amount of tension within Sudan and internationally. Sudan has also been the home of thousands of refugees due to the wars in the countries surrounding Sudan. In recent years, Sudan has reformed their government and was once again thrown into a civil war. In August of 2014, peace talks began, but the fighting was still ongoing ("South Sudan Profile – Timeline").
Description of Content
Mende Nazer was born in the Karko Tribe of the Nuba people in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. Nazer tells the reader what her childhood was like and how close she was to her family and her tribe; she talks about how loving and peaceful her people were. No one had a meal alone, and everyone was happy (Nazer and Lewis 11). Nazer does talk about some struggles her tribe had to deal with, such as snake bites, their high infant mortality rate, droughts and famine, and disease. After the reader gets attached to Nazer, her family, and her tribe, the Karko tribe is ambushed by Arab raiders. Nazer is separated from her family and is kidnapped, raped, and enslaved. It takes many years before Nazer is freed from slavery and then from the threat of being deported back to Sudan.
The prologue describes in great detail how Nazer was taken. In the middle of the night, a neighbor's house caught fire, and her family thinks it's just an accident. It is soon revealed that it is the raiders causing havoc. Nazer says, "We ran through scenes from your worst nightmare. . . . There were so many huts on fire, the whole night sky was lit up with the flames" (Nazer and Lewis 3). It had been the raiders who started the fires so they could kill the Nuba people who tried to protect the tribe. Nazer's father starts telling his family to run. Initially, they are able to get away, but they run into a barricade. Nazer says that the raiders "had blocked the only obvious escape route" (Nazer and Lewis 3). Nazer describes how, in the panic and hysteria of the attack, she and her father lose track of her mother.
Nazer describes how she and her father are able to get away from the second line of raiders, but a stampede of their tribe's cattle causes her to get separated from her father. This allows Nazer to get captured by an attacker. The Mujahedin who captured her warns her to stay quiet or the other raiders will kill her (Nazer and Lewis 4). The raider drags Nazer back to the village. Nazer says that as she walked, she "could see the village burning and I could hear screams all around me. I saw Nuba women on the ground with Mujahedin on top of them, pawing at their bodies. I could smell the stench of burning, of blood and of terror" (Nazer and Lewis 5). The prologue then describes how Nazer was left wondering if her family was alive, not knowing what was going to happen to her.
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Academic Papers
Não FicçãoThese works are the papers I've written for my community college and university courses. Topics will range from violence in video games and literary analysis to slavery and rape. There is also some poetry in here!
