LIGHT and DARK/GOOD and BAD

Now, the way that I understand Chapter 2 after reading it for a couple of times, it appears that in the flashback of his childhood Ishmael was not trying to follow the folktale of the moon. Why? It seems that in the revolution that was going on in Sierra Leone, he had no other choice; kill or be killed. However, this is not a valid reason to be celebrating or to feel happiness because he was taking lives away from those other children. Like Ishmael states: “We walked toward the dead bodies, giving each other high fives”. Looks like he lost all innocence that most children have.

Now we go to his new life; in this one, I believe, he is really striving to be like the moon, to be better, to become someone different, because he had the chance to get out from his country, therefore, the opportunity of starting back again from zero. However he shows us that he doesn’t really want to forget his childhood, they are the ones who make him who he is now. By the end of Chapter 2, Ishmael describes the differences of day and night. In my opinion, the day is when he strives to be like the moon because he is trying to have a new life, he is taking the chance he was given, therefore, he is following what the old man said. But in the night, his dreams takes him back to his childhood of which he is not proud. The child that took life away from other children just like him, the one celebrated dead; this is why I think he says: “… before turning on the light so that I could completely free myself from the dream world… I stayed awake all-night anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life ”

While most of us played with toys at day and at night we went to sleep thinking in tomorrow's fun, Ishmael killed children just like him, never knowing if he would be able to see daylight again.

"Striving to be like the moon"

By the end of chapter 1, Ishmael Beah describes how the old man used to say to people, "We must strive to be like the moon". His grandmother explained him what the old man meant. She said " the adage served to remind people to always be on their best behavior and to be good to others".

In chapter 2 he describes what he sees in his dream. He was part of the attack to the other armed group. He killed children just as young as him; I think in this part I cannot make a connection from his dream to how would he strive to be like the moon. By the end of the chapter he describes how he would like to erase those memories from the past, but he is aware that they are an important part of his life and that they make him who he is now. He also says " I would like to return to my new life, to rediscover the happiness I had know as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden". This specific part makes me believe he is striving to be like the moon; even with all of the bad experiences he had as a child, he is trying his best to create a new life, and does not let those memories affect his present.