Guilt and Responsibility Theme Analysis

War is fertile ground for feelings of regret and guilt. Although as a manipulated child soldier, Beah can never be said to be at fault, his actions as a child soldier are often at odds with the person he imagined himself to be. Beah experiences himself firing the gun or slitting the throat—because he did fire the gun and slit the throat—and therefore cannot help but feel he is responsible for the pain he causes.

In the first half of the memoir, regret is pervasive. He feels himself guilty for, at various times, not asking his troubled brother what he was feeling, stealing food from strangers and children, and hitting friends out of anger. Despite this guilt, Beah’s most essential condition is helplessness. He is always unsure of what will happen next.

When they are picked up by the army, it is the boys’ sense of their own helplessness that is key to coercing them. The language of the lieutenant at the time of conscription is not that of choice. He tells the boys that they are free to flee, but that the village is surrounded, and that anyone who flees will be given no rations. The other option is to fight. Fighting gives the boys a chance to change their futures, while to flee is to accept their dismal fate. But the choice is ultimately a false one. To fight is to probably die as well, as the boys are poorly trained, ill-equipped, and well, boys. Further, the lieutenant may very well be lying. At other times, after all, the army is shown to be able to ferry people to and from the front, as in the case of the boy’s rehabilitation.

As a child soldier and as a killer, Beah reclaims his agency and even his pride through revenge. Deep down, he is still very much conflicted about killing, evidenced by his migraines and constant escape through drugs. But even if he feels conflicted, he still thinks his actions are righteous. For that reason, the refrain of the staff at the rehabilitation house after the war, “it is not your fault,” only provokes further violence from the boys. They feel not only condescended to, but that forgiveness is an insult: they feel they were right to avenge their families.

Beah eventually comes to find agency in his future and to understand revenge as a circuit that only leads to endless violence. He understands he cannot change his past, but that he can change the fates of those who might otherwise suffer as he did. He goes to the UN as a model of rehabilitation, and later devotes himself to a life of advocacy.