In The Country of Men (Responding to Conflict)

Suleiman is emotionally immature /Suleiman’s responses to conflict are childish because he is a child

AGREED

·         Suleiman is unaware that the “medicine” is actually alcohol

·         “I was so close I could have touched the driver’s cheek and I wasn’t frightened. Not at all. Not even a little, I` wasn’t”- Even though he was scared that time, he pretends not to be to impress his father

·         “This is why I often lay in my darkened bedroom dreaming of saving her”- Suleiman compares his desires and life to a fairy tale

·         “ I wished the Revolutionary Committee would return and this time take my father so that we would be equal, united again by that mysterious bond if blood that up to that day felt like an advantage.” – Suleiman thought that by his father being taken away, it would get rid of Kareem’s grief

DISAGREED

·         “I began to feel sorry and sad on how such mornings she was always generous and embarrassed as if she had walked out naked. I wanted to run to her, to hold her hand, latch on to her dress as she shopped and dealt with the world, a world full of men and the greed of men – Suleiman understands how evil the world of men can be

·         “I will then be a man, heavy with the world”- Suleiman acknowledges that adulthood is not easy

·         “I tell myself off for being stubborn and for letting her buy me so many” – Suleiman self-reflects his action

·         “I felt sick, anxious that I had done the wrong thing. Baba wasn’t on a business trip” “Why had I not acted?” – Suleiman feels a great need and burden to make sure he does the right thing. He evaluates his situation

·         “Sometimes even before seeing her I could tell she was ill” – Suleiman has great insight in his circumstances at home

·         “I would come into the house and notice a certain stillness, something altered. I knew without knowing how I knew.”

·         “exhausted from listening to her craziness and from guarding her- afraid she would burn herself or leave the gas on in the kitchen or, God forbid, leave the house altogether and bring shame and talk down on us ” – Suleiman understood that letting others know about his mother’s illness would be shameful

·         “sadness of longing, it was the sadness of betrayal, the silence sadness that comes from being let down”

·         Suleiman understands that “his body is a patchwork of bruises”

·         “He didn’t bring gifts as he usually did when he returned from his travels. This confirmed that he had been lying : telling us he was going abroad when he was escaping to his other life here in Tripoli” – shows great wisdom and ability to tell if someone is honest; doesn’t fully trust adults, knows that they are imperfect

·         “Concern. I think that was what I craved. A warm and steady and unchangeable concern.”  “urgent with want and longing for relief, I was the ridiculous child craving concern” – Suleiman understands what he lacked

·         “And what a failure I prove to be” – harsh critical reflection

Suleiman responds to situations of conflict in the way he does because he lacks role-models

AGREED

·         At a young age, Suleiman had already needed to “Take care of your mother, you are the man of the house now”

·         Najwa’s reaction when Suleiman emptied her bottle of alcohol - “ Her tone, the way she sat stiff and unmoving, immediately unsettled me. This was a mood that overtook her at tomes, one I was familiar with and which turned her inn search of conflict” (Not a good role model)

·         Najwa’s respond to conflict was“calling for her dead father to return and save her because it was  too soon, she said, all too much and too soon”; by yelling and crying

·         “Can you become a man without becoming your father?”- Suleiman’s father is constantly absent and distant from him

Suleiman’s response to conflict are about power

AGREED

·         “feeling a dark unstoppable force gain momentum”

·         “imagined their eyes gleaming with pride.”

·         ““Kareem entrusted you with his secret love for Leila” but Suleiman misused Kareem’s trust to gain power among the boys

·         “ I grabbed a handful of stones and hurled them at him (Bahloul)” “Everytime I missed my anger hardened”

·          “reminded of that secret rush of power I had felt chasing him around the garden, throwing stones at his back”

DISAGREED

·         “I was surprised by how easy it was to get rid of him, how willing he was to obey me. It made me feel guilty” “I suddenly felt affection towards him” when Bahloul when he was earnest and ran to the other door

Suleiman doesn’t know how to resolve and response to conflict

AGREED

·         “we all would have respected a bleeding man” – Suleiman thought wounds represented the heroic act

·         When Najwa was “shocked when I repeated to her the things she told me the night before”, Suleiman’s reaction was to shout “You,” I  would shout- shout because I was unable not to”

·         “The things she told me pressed down on my chest, so heavy that it seemed impossible to carry on living without spilling them”

·         “I begged him several times and once I felt so sick with sadness that I screamed, kicked his shins and pummelled his thighs, and, when Mama restrained me, I cried and called him ‘Ugly’

·         “I felt my cheeks burn with an anger that seemed to come from nowhere” when Najwa says “wasted words”. When “Mama was crying. I felt my anger doubling. I slapped the table.” – respond to conflict with anger

·         “A strange exhaustion came over me”

·          “ I grabbed a handful of stones and hurled them at him. “Every time I missed my anger hardened” “I let the plates fall loudly” “I often threw my shoe at the wall when it’s lace refused to be untangled – respond to conflict with violence

·         “I slammed the door shut and locked myself in the room”- responded to conflict by avoiding it

·         “my self-pity had soured into self-loathing”

DISAGREED

·         “I never again asked him to take me with him or cried in front of him when he came to leave.” – Suleiman doesn’t make the same mistake, he understands that it doesn’t work

·          “Everything is going to be fine”; “I wanted to tell her , “Don’t worry, everything will be all right”;

·          “I didn’t know what was the matter with me, but was now more concerned for her- Suleiman reacts to conflict by comforting others

·         Suleiman opened the window when the gas was left on, showing that he knows what to do to take care of himself and mother

·         When Suleiman remembers his father’s words “Take care of your mother, you are the man of the house now”, he ”buried my hands in my armpits trying to stop trembling” – tries to be brave

·         “Something in me was ashamed if what I had done to Bahloul”

·         “I felt we, Mama and I , would be safer this way”- courageously responding to conflict

Suleiman’s responses to conflict stem from his failure to understand the adult world

AGREED

·         “Although I knew Bahloul was mad, these words, these meaningless words that he always repeated, increased my confusion. I wondered if he thought I was stealing my neighbours’ berries and was announcing himself the witness” “Was I stealing? I wasn’t sure” “My heart shuddered. I tried to look, to seem, to feel innocent because, as Sheikh Mustafa had told me, the innocent has no cause to fear” – Suleiman has doubts on whether he was guilty or innocent

·         “I lay that night unable to sleep, wondering- an d feeling fear, guilt and anger at my wondering- if I shouldn’t have done something to stop it; if unbeknown to me Mama needed my help” – he wants to do the right thing but he doesn’t know what is the right thing

·          “I was confused. Why wasn’t he furious?” – doesn’t understand why his mother and Moosa burned the books

·         “I knew he was lying” – about Sharief being good friends with his father but “Unlike Mama and Moosa, he answered my question, He didn’t treat me like a child – Suleiman can’t tell whether to trust Sharief or not

DISAGREED

·         “I knew she was lying” about Baba headache light; Suleiman “knows how she lies” but is also aware that “She keeps the truths and does it only for your own good”