Voice, particularly that in first-person perspective, often reveals a character's connection to his or her experiences in a text, but it is the variations in a voice that determine the identity of the character in these texts. Literary texts that address childhood violence often involve the exploration of these different voices in characters, because they provide insight into the effects of the environment on characters. Chris Abani's novel GraceLand and the 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 much about the meaning (power? weakness?) of children's innocence in these contexts. In the Netflix original film Beasts of No Nation, directed by Cary Fukunaga, the main character Agu, a young boy from an unnamed African country, is forced to join a rebel group made up of child soldiers. As the war progresses and Agu increasingly faces the possibility of dying, his relationship with his friend Strika and his leader, the Commander, begin to weigh ever more heavily on his conscience and will to survive. In Abani's GraceLand, the main character Elvis lives in Lagos, Nigeria, a dilapidated and rapidly deteriorating physical and community city. Elvis struggles to become an adult in a changing society that pushes him to keep up and accept the environment he is forced into. Fukunaga and Abani's characters show their naivety and lack of awareness of their situation through opposite means; Agu does this through self-talk, while Elvis literally expresses his concern over his lack of knowledge about the world around him. Fukunaga and Abani create emotional portraits of the character's history of difficulty and maturity through their character's different forms of self-expression and thought. The comparison between this text and the film triggers a discussion about two violent environments and their impact on the two main characters. The analysis of Agu's internal dialogue and Elvis' actions of vocally expressing his thoughts trigger the question of how, when and why kids choose to express their emotions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The use of internal dialogue to portray Agu's thoughts and feelings about what is happening around him is a surprisingly jarring mix of ambiguity and transparency. The ambiguity lies in the many silences during the film's most intense scenes, as shown in the scene where the commander orders Agu to kill a man, who claims to be an innocent engineering student, for the first time. During the commander's entire explanation of how to kill the man, as well as when Agu carries out the deed, Agu does not share any thoughts with the audience. The film itself has white noise whirring in the background, with the commander's orders barely audible. Agu seems to push back his own thoughts at times when he is brainwashed or forced to do something due to his lack of control over his life. He rejects his power to have ideas as a human being because he realizes that he no longer possesses this power: his ideas have become useless to himself and others and he is simply being used as a pawn in a larger political issue. Although Agu appears to be ecstatic about killing the man, it turns out that Agu's actions were forced by the commander's taunting words as he stands over him: “Remember what they took from you. Remember your suffering and turn it into hatred forThey. A mentally shattering situation like this is clearly beyond Agu's control and ability to understand, thus explaining his lack of thought and surplus of action, as well as proving his innocence in these situations. His silence during the serious/gruesome events he is involved in leaves the audience in the dark about what he might be thinking or feeling in those moments. Scenes like these, which essentially isolate viewers from Agu's mental state, leaving it ambiguous, foreshadow one of the film's final scenes, in which Agu is placed in a therapy session with social worker Amy. Amy pushes Agu to talk about his experiences as a child soldier, only to have him sit in silence, and the audience is finally open to her explanation of his silence:: "He thinks I don't talk because I can't explain myself as a child... but I'm not like a child, I'm like an old man, and she's like a little girl, because I'm fighting in the war and she doesn't even know what war is" This quote is said in a voiceover, allowing only the audience to listen. Amy pushes Agu to open up to her about his feelings in parallel with the audience's desire for Agu to reveal these same elements. Agu's inability to do so verbally, but his ability to make his feelings clear to the audience through internal dialogue reveal that the war was not the only reason Agu remained silent throughout the film. Agu cannot understand the concept of discussing the past with others, because he cannot understand his past enough to even discuss it with himself. Unlike Agu, Elvis physically expresses his concerns and confusion about these situations, rather than internalizing them; he seeks clarity in other people and seeks the truth about the situations he finds himself in. One of the novel's opening scenes shows Elvis at age 5, participating in a traditional ceremony in which a boy becomes a man. The ceremony involves the boy killing an eaglet and, with the permission of the village elders, he is proclaimed "man". Unfortunately for Elvis, a lack of resources and a diminishing traditionalist spirit in his community force his ceremony to include a pre-killed chick instead. Elvis, naive about the significance of the ceremony, rattles off multiple questions to his father and uncle: "What's going on?" “But why do I have to kill an eagle?” “Is this an eagle chick?” And he even questions his father after he claims that Elvis killed the girl, "I didn't do it," to which his father replies, "You did it." The wave of questions from Elvis illustrates how Elvis is unable to understand what the purposes of the ceremony are. Similar to Agu's first experience with murder, Elvis only performs the ceremony because he is pushed to do so by forces greater than himself, and both characters find themselves in an environment where they must submit to these forces simply because their society is organized this way. . Elvis' questions about his society are due to the similar feeling that Agu has, where he is brainwashed by people, such as his father and the elders, to believe that the "tradition" continues, and the purpose of the next generation is is to continue this, rather than form your own thoughts and ideas about them. The continuity of Elvis' explicit questioning foreshadows the failure of his society, where verbalizing new ideas and creating conversations about them is becoming increasingly prevalent. The feeling of not understanding the life you live in is disturbing and, especially for children, is an essential part of discovering who you are as a person and what role you will play in life: what voice you will have in society. Elvishe struggles with this throughout GraceLand and while Agu is given a "purpose" in his life (to be a soldier) and chooses internal dialogue to accompany this new life he's been thrust into, Elvis has a harder time pinpointing which voice he wants wants have, and instead imitates those similar to other characters in the novel such as the King, his mentor. Elvis is part of a society that does not physically choose the "destiny" of others, as in Agu's world, yet he subliminally puts pressure on people, particularly men, to fall into certain categories, and Elvis feels this subtle pressure throughout novel, when two important people in his life, the King and the Redemption, have opposing ideas about how he should participate in society. Elvis' mentor, King, the neighborhood beggar, plays an influential role in this dilemma. In a bar, Elvis listens to the king give a speech about politics and the need to overthrow the current government. Elvis is amazed by the way the king delivered his speech, but notices that he is distracted by the music playing nearby. This shows that he is more focused on the theatricality of the king's speech and sees it as a performance rather than an attempt at political revolution. The King's attitude in this context, outspoken and self-confident, could be a contribution to the outspoken tendencies that Elvis has in him, as well as his way of emulating the kind of man he wants to be seen as. This attitude is put to the test every time he comes into contact with his friend, Redemption, who is the exact opposite of Elvis in the sense that he doesn't want to give substance to the truth of situations, and prefers to turn a blind eye to it. entirely. When Redemption offered Elvis the opportunity to take part in a shady job being offered as an "escort" by even shadier drug dealers, Elvis was dubious about taking the job due to a lack of information about it. Elvis tells him, "Why should I trust you when you want me to take a risk without telling me the whole story?", to which Redemption replies "Only a dead man tells all, only a fool asks." This response is what catalyzes a real discussion between the two friends, and is clear evidence that Elvis clearly wants to be aware and in control of his life, as the King attempts to teach him (and attempts to do so by expressing his concerns in a theatrical way) but is held back by the people in his society who live their lives based on blindly making decisions as a way to deal with the violence in the city in which they reside. Agu's filtering of bad situations unique to him through internal dialogue, in contrast to Elvis, who digests and speaks only about dangerous or bad situations in which he is exclusively involved. He discovers this about himself when Redemption exposes this trait, after Elvis expresses concern for his cousin, whom he hasn't spoken about in years, but it only occurs to him when he sees a woman who looks like her: "Dis Elvis, you're very selfish. .. When it comes to you, nothing is true... Instead you try to act as if no one can understand you." .” Redemption depicts Elvis' individualistic mentality as "selfish", yet Elvis continues to use this mentality as a way to resolve the difficult decisions he has to make. Agu's character seems to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, with little to no thoughts specifically about him. This could be a mix of the fact that his lethal “job” as a child soldier does not allow him to believe that he as an individual has a purpose, as shown in the scene where the NDF is raiding a village and, in a rumored off-screen, Agu says “My gun marks my hand. I am a servant to do whatever I say.” The scene of the NDF shooting at the.