Character Analysis: A Long Walk To Water

In 1983 a war began between northern and southern Sudan and about 2 million civilians were killed and more than 4 million people were forced to flee their homes, those people were called the Lost Boys of Sudan and were fleeing violence and afraid of being forced into. The Lost Boys of Sudan had to walk great distances with limited resources and by the time they all reached a refugee camp in Kenya only about 10,000 out of the original 26,000 survived. In the historical fiction book, A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park a Lost Boy named Salva is trying to survive and find his family throughout his journey through rough terrain. Throughout the story, Salva was very brave, determined, and mature and those three things made it possible for Salva

I know because “Salva reached for his gourd. He knew it to be half full, but suddenly it felt lighter there was hardly any water left in it. Uncle Jewiir must of guess what he was thinking “No, Salva”, he murmured. “You are too small, and not strong enough yet. Without water you will not be able to survive the rest of the walk. Some of the others-they will be able to manage better than you.” Sure enough there was a women giving water to the men on the ground” (58). This shows that Salva is mature because he wants to give the water he has in his gourd to someone on the ground that is close to being dead, and someone who is not mature would keep the water for themselves. According to the text, “Crowds of boys followed him. Nobody talked about it, but by the end of the first day Salva had become the leader of about fifteen hundred boys” (80). This shows Salva is mature because Salva didn't give up being the leader and made the group organized and was kind to people even though they did something bad. The author wrote “The time for grief was short, and the walking began soon after dark” (65). This shows Salva is mature because he's being upset and just moving on instead of being someone who is not mature and focusing on what happened to Marial and Uncle and staying upset about it. Salva is more mature than most