Character Analysis: A Long Walk To Water

Bare feet, empty house, bloody paths, hungry children, wounded men, crying women. This is what was seen walking through the streets and paths of Southern Sudan in the late 1900’s as well as Virginia in the late 1800’s. A family is much more than the blood running in your veins and the name on your birth certificate. Family are people you love and trust more than life itself. In A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Park and Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder, William Page and Salva Dut’s initial feelings of family were shifted, causing them to believe family was anyone you love and trust dearly, after life experiences such as loss and seclusion. William Page initially believed that family was your blood and the people that have the same beliefs

His thoughts reveal that,“ His mother would rise from the work grinning meal...By the time he reached the house, she would have gone inside to get his bowl of milk ready for him.” (Park 4-5). Salva is imagining his family and how well his family works together. He loves them and their memory makes them happy. His thoughts were interrupted by gunshots and suddenly, he is running away from the school, and even farther from his family. He walks for a long time before he meets a nice woman and she asks him, “ ‘Are you an orphan?’ He shook his head quickly… he had a family.” (Park 17). Salva feels upset because people believe he is an orphan and he does not believe his family is gone. After many weeks of walking and walking, Salva and the group he was traveling with arrived at the refugee camp and they stayed there for 6 years. After having been at the camp for a while, Salva becomes used to not having his family around much, although still, “He remembered how he had looked after his little brother...what it felt like to listen to the older ones...the gentleness of his sisters;the strength of his father; the care of his mother.” (Park 81). This is around the time when Salva became accustomed to not having a family, and he has grown to treat other people like family and to remember how great it was to have family. Salva eventually becomes family to many younger kids at the refugee camp and takes care of them with all his