Permanent Red By Ryan Caraveo Analysis

Alondra Tavares

Chestnut

ALWG Comparative Analysis

13 April 2023

“Permanent Red” by Ryan Caraveo is a song published in 2022 that expresses how angry he is and allows himself to be consumed and brainwashed by his anger. He goes on to explain how his anger had caused him to have outbursts rooted in his anger. A Long Way Gone is a memoir of a boy soldier written by Ismael Beah. The book follows a boy who was thrown into war in which he is primarily focused on avenging his family after hearing their final screams. Ishmael Beah and the song “Permanent Red” demonstrate how their anger brainwashed them and became the root of their actions. They both rely on anger and other things such as drugs to escape from other emotions rather than facing

The longer Ishmael holds his anger the less he began to care “The prisoner was simply another rebel who was responsible for the death of my family”

(124) he continues to feel and care less and less as he continues in war. Comparing “Permanent

Red,” Caraveo says “And I'll be gone off the deep end til' I'm deep in the dirt” implying that he will not stop being controlled by his anger he will continue to be angry and allow it to affect his actions without remorse for himself or others. Neither one of them demonstrated attempting to cope and get away from their anger instead they allowed their anger to have a home in them.

Their anger is close to them so they can keep doing drugs and having outbursts as it seems that they have lost themselves and refuse to get take any help that is offered to them.

The irony in Ishmael’s statement “I stood there holding my gun and felt special” (124) demonstrates that something like a gun can make him feel powerful and good about

When Ishmael was told to slit the throat of his prisoner he did not hesitate he won “I was proclaimed the winner … the audience clapped as if I had just fulfilled one of life’s greatest achievements (125) he saw how others reacted when he won but he did not

Tavares 3 pay attention to how he felt, he was observing as if he knew that the anger inside of him would not fade away. Caraveo did attempt to fight his anger and not let it consume him, but he failed “I think I tried every vice tryin' to clog up that hole”, like Ishmael, his anger replaced every other emotion and nothing he did had the ability to overthrow that feeling. Once the war had become normal for Beah, he did not bring up his family, but he brought up the activities that he did

“When we conversed with each other, we talked only about the war movies and how impressed we were with the way either the lieutenant, the corporal, or one of us had killed someone. It was as if nothing else existed outside our reality” (124) this demonstrates that he did not want to remember what happened to his family. Caraveo mentions “[t]reat the trauma with the trance,