50 pages • 1 hour read
Dave EggersWhat Is The What
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Sudan’s Invisibility and the Western View of Sudan Compared to Darfur
The Lost Boys of Sudan have trouble being recognized as worthy of attention and help. When Deng and Achor Achor meet the police woman to report the robbery of their home, she shows little interest until they tell her they are from Sudan, after which she immediately comes alive: “Wait. Darfur, right? It is a fact that Darfur is now better known than the country in which that region sits” (238). She then asks if they were part of the genocide, to which Achor Achor’s response is to try to explain and clarify. Darfur is a popular topic in the west, and a place Americans may have heard of, but the officer quickly loses interest. As Deng points out: “We refugees can be celebrated one day, helped and lifted up, and then utterly ignored by all when we prove to be a nuisance. When we find trouble here, it is invariably our own fault” (239). This also points to the general ignorance and disinterest that Americans seem to have toward the tragedies occurring in Africa. Even something as terrible as genocide can be forgotten when it occurs on the other side of the world.
Trauma and Stress
In Chapter 18, as Deng waits for treatment in the hospital, Achor Achor’s phone rings. Ajing, another Sudanese boy, is calling them to tell them the war has begun again, but quickly calls back to tell them it was just an accident: “A bomb just went off. Or a mortar. They just bombed us. Huge explosion. Call CNN and tell them to send a camera. The world needs to know. Bashir is attacking us again. The war has returned!” (289). This constant nervousness and readiness to jump to the worst possible conclusions about accidents is a common symptom of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many of the boys are present in the camp when the prisoners are brought forward and murdered in the name of nationalism by the rebels. Instead of galvanizing their patriotism and readiness to join the SPLA, this traumatizes the children horribly. The violence and terror they experience relentlessly, from the time many are quite young, has left permanent scars on their psyches.
Destiny and Courage
The Lost Boys of Sudan, and particularly Deng, must make many choices throughout the book, but often go along with what is forced upon them instead of finding the strength or capability to resist. When they are on the drama trip to the city, Tabitha calls Deng out on this, telling him that they should run away together and make their own choices for once:
You’re not just a Sudanese boy. You don’t have to accept these limitations. You don’t have to obey the laws of where someone like you must belong, that because you have Sudanese skin and Sudanese features you have to be just a product of the war, that you’re just part of all this shit…what right do all these people have to draw boundaries around the life you can live? (464).
Here, Tabitha is actively trying to get Deng to refuse to accept his destiny and instead make his own. After Tabitha’s death, he finds new courage to make choices for himself, and gives a rousing speech to his peers: “We’re men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown” (531). Deng realizes that they have suffered, but this freedom is their reward, whether it turns out well or not.
Home
Deng and his comrades become the Lost Boys of Sudan when their villages are burned, their families are killed, and their property is stolen. All the things that define home—a sense of belonging, love, and safety—are stripped from them, and replaced with little more than fear and pain. They then go on a forced quest to find a new home, which is virtually impossible, because there is no place where these things can be found for them. Marial Bai is a home for Deng only until it’s destroyed. He is told he will find a home in Ethiopia, but when he arrives, the land is fallow and unwelcoming, looking very much like where he just left. The refugee camps, although relatively safe compared to where he was before, are impermanent. Deng knows the idea is to leave there, and does not want to spend his entire life in the camp. Even once he finally comes to America, which has been the dream and the potential end of his journey, he admits that the US is not home, either: “When the morning ends and my work is done at the Century Club, I leave, knowing I am leaving this job and I am leaving Atlanta” (533). He explains that he will leave America to find his way back home to Africa, despite the fact that his original home there is long gone. As his father told him in their conversation before he leaves for America, “[t]his town is still ashen from the last attack. Don’t come here” (513).
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