Theme Of Forgotten Fire By Adam Bagdasarian

Forgotten Fire, by Adam Bagdasarian is a compelling book about the struggle of a 12 year old boy who lost his whole family to a war in 1915. Throughout the book Vahan Kenderian is put to the test to survive and make it in a world where everything is against him. He goes through deaths of family and friends, starvation, and he struggles to find a home all because of a war. Without the war that ripped apart his family, Vahan would have never grown up and matured like he did into the grown 15 year old he turned out to be.

Vahan becomes a carriage driver at only 15 for the Army. Before the war, Vahan lived the perfect life. He was just a kid at age 12 and now only 3 years later he is a young man. After everything Vahan goes through, from home

Vahan went from being a spoiled little kid to a grown man going to war by the time he was 15. Ever since Vahan was little he was taught not to begg. Even in the end of his grandmother's life she told him to not beg for water. That he needed to stay strong no matter what because they did not raise him to be a beggar. She told him he was too good for that. On page 46 it says “Don’t look’, my Grandmother said. I pretended not to hear her. ‘Don’t look, Vahan’ she said, taking my chin and turning my head toward her. ‘Why?’ ‘First you look, then you beg,’ she said. ‘And you are not a beggar. ‘But i'm thirsty.’ I said. But she knew that; she was thirsty, too.” Here, Vahan and his family are being led by soldiers through a forest with hundreds of other Armenians. They have not eaten or drank anything in days. When the soldiers stop for water at a river they tease the prisoners by drinking and making them beg for it, but whoever begs for it dies. His Grandmother makes sure to tell him never to beg no matter what, but by the end of the book Vahan resorts to begging because of how hungry he is. For example, it says, “I was not a beggar, but I knew as I watched the children that I really would beg, that I had to beg. It was not a decision that I questioned or doubted, but a fact as real as real and stark as my empty stomach. Who would give me food if I did not beg for it?” (102) Here Vahan does what he has to to survive and for

Vahan’s brother was kind of like his protector. He helps Vahan and pushes him not to stop and to never give up, but without that protection in his life he learned to be independent and to make his own decisions. Sissak’s death changes Vahan because now he is alone and has to figure things out for himself. For example, on page 93 it says, “I did not know where I was walking and I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was caught and taken to prison, or run through with a sword. I passed several people on the street, some of whom might have been soldiers or gendarmes, but I didn’t look; I didn’t have to. I was as free as a ghost or a dying man” In this moment Sisak just died, and after everything Vahan did, he couldn’t stop it. Without his brother, Vahan made a decision he wouldn't normally make. He takes a step out of his comfort zone and does what feels right to him, not thinking about the consequences. Since his brother isn’t there anymore he doesn’t have anyone else to tell him to do or not to something, and in the end because of this it makes him more