Darkest Time in Sierra Leone

     How do you feel about the conflicts that happen in the book The Bite of the Mango? The conflict of the book is very awful, considering that this happened in real life. The cause of the conflict of this book is the rebels. The rebels start invading villages, killing and amputating people, and raping women. One of the victims is the narrator, Mariatu Kamara, on page 40 she got her hands cut off at the age of twelve, she said: "It took the boy two attempts to cut off my right hand". In my opinion, this is really awful getting your hands cuts off because your hands help you a lot, for example, picking and holding things up. Without your hands, you can barely do things. You might wish that you rather lose your feet rather than your hands because there's a wheelchair and you don't use a lot of your feet for anything other than standing, running, walking, and participate activities. I know that there are prosthetic hands invented but there's a huge difference between real hands with real flesh than fake hands with fake flesh. I am not saying that I am not thankful that I have complete limbs but when you're in the same situation as Mariatu I think you might think that way, or you might think that you rather die than suffer. That is why I am thankful that I have complete limbs and I lived in Canada because it's a peaceful country and there is no rebels. When Mariatu got her hands cut off, it reminds me of the movie 127 hours, it is based on true story of a guy went hiking to the canyon, and got his hands stuck between the boulder and the canyon wall. In 127 hours, he ration his food and water, after he ran out of water, he forced himself to drink his own urine. Later on the movie, he decided to cut off his right hand with a pocket knife to free himself. Although in 127 hours main character did not get his hand cut off by rebels but he did it to survive. The significance of the conflict is to complete the story, without the conflict the story would be boring, and nobody would get interested in reading the book. If there is no conflict in any of the story, the plot diagram would not be completed, there wouldn't be a plot twist where the character overcomes the conflict that caused by an antagonist. Therefore the book should have a conflict otherwise it would be lame. The book The Bite of the Mango was superb because this book can inspired someone to face their challenges, and turn positives into negatives just like Mariatu.