The Helplessly Hopeless

Everyone has had a moment in their life where they felt so discouraged that they should just give up. To what extent do these thoughts go? What does giving up look like to you? In the book The Bite of the Mango, Mariatu Kamara tells her tale, revealing the hardships of her wartime past, many of which dug deep enough to make her want to end her life.

The first sign of Mariatu’s strength is displayed after having her hands hacked off by the rebels. While she is trying to find her family, she encounters a man who offers her food. Instead of allowing him to feed her, she is determined to find a way to do this basic action herself. This scene is found towards the end of chapter four.

““Here,” he said, holding the mango up to my mouth for me to eat. But I shook my head. I couldn’t eat from his hands. It felt wrong to be fed like a baby.

“Put it in there,” he said, lifting my arms gently and placing the mango between the folds of the fabric. I raised my arms and managed to take a few bites of the juicy fruit.” (page 48)

In that moment, Mariatu was determined to not appear helpless without her hands, sparking hope within her readers. I think this scene is so significant to the story that it is where the book’s title was generated.

At the very beginning of chapter six, Mariatu remembers an injured bird from when she was young that she now compares herself to.

“One afternoon when I was little, I was sitting underneath a coconut tree when a tiny yellow and brown weaver dropped suddenly from the sky. I don’t know what made that little bird fall, but it landed with a thud on the red clay earth. I moved to help it, then decided not to. The weaver was injured. It was better off dying on its own than having me take it back to the village, where it would most likely die in pain a day or two later, or worse, live out its life with a broken wing. For the longest time, I watched as that stubborn bird tried to stand up on its crooked little legs, flapping its wings wildly, only to topple over and lie still before trying all over again.

Then something miraculous happened. After the bird had lain motionless for so long I thought it was dead, it stood up as solid as ever and lifted off into the sky.

When I saw Ibrahim and Mohamad, I felt like that bird. Something had knocked me clear out of the sky, and here I was on the ground, trying to get up. But I couldn’t, and I wondered if I’d ever have the perseverance of that small weaver.” (page 59)

At the end of chapter six, Mariatu once again references back to the bird.

“I don’t know where it came from but I laughed. I felt like that little weaver bird again, but this time I had the feeling I could learn to fly.” (page 64)

The weaver is used to show that you can still stand up, spread your wings, and fly after being knocked down. This is not the first time that I have seen a bird used as a literary symbol for survival. In the movie The Shallows, an injured seagull plays the same role as The Bite of the Mango’s weaver. I think the main characters of each piece of work gather some of their strength, as well as inspiration from these small birds that most people could overlook.

On the other hand, though, there are the inevitable times when Mariatu expresses major bouts of despondency.The first time that the thought that death would be better than living through her challenges comes when during the rebel attack on her village.

"In one violent swoop, he chopped off the woman’s head. The baby wailed as the woman’s body fell back into the house on top of him. Her head rolled onto the road toward me.

I started to cry again, and my body convulsed. “Do you want to join them?” the rebel watching over me threatened. Part of me did.”

As Mariatu’s challenges increase, so do these thoughts until they turn into actions.

“I grabbed the pill bottle between my arms and sat back down on the bed. With my bandages I tried to pry open the lid. My arms hurt from the pressure, but I didn’t give up.

After some concentrated effort, the lid opened.

I stopped for a moment to pray.

“Take me, Allah. Take my baby and me. I want to die.”” (page 71)

All of these scenes show that life may give you all different levels of adversity that will make you may falter at times but you always have it in you to push through. Have hope for you are never completely helpless. Suicide is never the answer.