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He wanted to go to war and come back a “hero. ” Hall stated “hills ambition may have also been Influenced by those Habeas chiefs who said they hated to sit Idle after a brief break from going to war. ” But unfortunately, all these songs and rumors about the war were just that, rumors. In reality, the Libya war was a horrible experience for all the conscripts and their families. Hall is able to portray the war as it truly was; a way that makes the reader sympathetic for Adequate and his family, while at the same time giving Important details about the war.
Throughout Hall’s novel, the Italians instantly looked down on the conscripts. The Italians believed themselves to be superior to the conscripts and treated them “like dogs. ” Even from the very beginning, the conscripts were poorly treated. The Italians came and forced the conscripts away from their families before a proper goodbye could be said. This action was very inhumane and showed how little the Italians cared about the emotions of the conscripts. In addition conscripts were forced to walk through the burning sand while the Italians rode on mules and camels.
They had no shoes and were prone to wounds on their feet. At night they slept in the open exposed to the roaring wind, as the Italians were comfortable in their tents. I was confused when reading over these events because I would expect the Italians to treat the conscripts well since they had to fight along side them. For example, if the conscripts were extremely worn out from walking for days, this would make them to weak to effectively fight in the war. These Incidents helped the reader get further connected to the story because the reader feels sympathy for Adequate and the other conscripts.
Another concern that came about while reading this book Is that throughout the Tory, Hall never mentioned the conscripts being trained for battle. These men were all inexperienced fighters going into a war that wasn’t even there’s. Not only were these soldiers under experienced, they were also in an unfamiliar terrain. The conscripts were at a great disadvantage. In a sense they were digging their own grave by entering this war. The Habeas cultural beliefs also played a role in the Italians mistreatment of the conscripts. Hall states In the novel that “when a son of Habeas was elected as a privileged orderly to serve a white man,… E thought he ad reached seven skies higher than his colleagues. ” This shows that the Habeas truly believe that the Italians were superior to them and this added on to the way the Italians treated them. There are many references to God through out The Conscript. For example, Toucan’s mother prayed onto the lord In the beginning of the novel to spare the novel when Tea, Adequate mother, names her son “Adequate Manhandle Lame (God’s gift). ” This shows that Adequate and his family are God-fearing people. I was confused when reading this part because God-fearing people are do not usually got o war or kill other people.
This contradicts Adequate belief and is another reason why he shouldn’t have gone to war in the first place. I believe that Adequate decision to leave his family to go fight in the war was completely ineffectual for his well being as well as the well being of his parents. When Adequate left, “darkness fell upon the house. It was like retuning home after the funeral of a beloved one. ” Adequate was the “light” of his household and always brought Joy to his parents. When he left he took the “light” with him. His Journey to go to war wasn’t even a growing experience for him.
He actually suffered the whole two years. Between walking for days on end, and suffering from a lack of water from time to time, Adequate wasn’t able to enjoy his experience. He left his perfect lifestyle, were he had a two loving parents, as much food as he wanted to eat and a soft bed to sleep in every night, to be treated like a dog by the Italians. The worst part about him leaving his parents is that his parents constantly worried about him, which led to the death of his mother. When Adequate first left his home to get on the train, his mother fainted.
I believe his mother fainting foreshadowed her death later on in the novel. The fact that Adequate wasn’t even fighting for his own country adds on to why him going to war was a bad decision. Adequate himself even regrets his decision when he says, “It was my choice that I came here, so let me suffer the consequence. ” In my opinion, Adequate decision to go to war was a complete waste of time, especially because he didn’t achieve his goal of coming back a “hero. ” The Conscript was a very interesting historical novel that showed the reader important experience as the Habeas were under the Italians.
Hail’s description of the conscript’s struggles as they traveled to war kept the readers attention and helped develop the novel as a whole. Hail’s characterized of Adequate as a person that readers could really relate to because he was able to show Adequate human emotions such as kindness, sympathy and regret. The Conscript was a very eye-opening novel because it showed me parts of history that I never knew about through perspectives that a regular textbook cannot show. As a literary work, The Conscript was very insightful and I would recommend it to anyone interested in modern African writing.