Dawn

My family came down this weekend, so I was trying to find time to squeeze in school work. I decided I would reread the book in the car, so I read to my father while he drove. I only got through the first paragraph when the conversation began. Normally an hour long car ride with your parents would be absolute misery, but this time it provided some academic content.
We discussed the struggle that Elisha faces when it comes to his job of killing someone. It is quite heart breaking to see the character wondering if the crying baby and the woman across the way know he will kill someone tomorrow, or wondering what the person he will kill is like. Gad says it is just war, but Elisha is emotionally involved. We wanted to be angry with Elisha, but we also felt sympathy. We had hope that his emotions would cause him to make the right decision, but I suppose "right" is relative. Elisha had become the person who killed his family.
We were disappointed, and normally we would say "It's fine. It's just a book." But it is not just a book, and that is what really got us.

I commented on Hailey and Rachael's post

Comments

Rachael Gregson said…
Yeah, I so agree with you. We're all so quick to point fingers at Elisha (me included), but if we really sit down and think about it, would we do the same? To kill a guy because we want to fit in? Or because it's okayed by the excuse that it's merely "war"? In all honesty, I think Elisha's choice was a product of his empty desperation and because he was only a shell of the man he once was before losing his family. His decision to kill wasn't directly 'right' or 'wrong', simply 'human.'