Voices of No Nation Sabrina G Rodriguez College

Voice, specifically one in first-person perspective, often reveals a character’s connection to his/her experiences in a text- but it is the variations in a voice that determines the character’s identity in these texts. Literary texts that discuss violence in childhood often involve exploration of these different voices in characters, because they provide insight on the environment’s effects on the characters. The novel GraceLand by Chris Abani and film Beasts of No Nation are based on violent topics such as rape, war, and child soldiers; when these topics are expressed through different voices, the result can be powerfully moving and can reveal a lot about the meaning (power? weakness?) of children’s innocence in these contexts. In the Netflix original film Beasts of No Nation, directed byCary Fukunaga, main character Agu, a young boy from an unnamed country in Africa, is forced into a rebel group made up of child soldiers. As the war progresses, and Agu is increasingly faced with opportunities of dying, his relationship with his friend Strika and his leader, the Commandant, begin to weigh more heavily on his conscience and will to survive. In Abani’s GraceLand, main character Elvis lives in Lagos, Nigeria--a dilapidated and...