Forgotten Fire By Adam Bagdasarian Analysis

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Adam Bagdasarian’s Forgotten Fire describes the journey of Vahan Kenderian through his sufferings and relationships during World War I. In 1915, Vahan is separated from his family and left to fend for himself against the Turkish armies invading Armenia. Fending for himself was not to be easy; he would endure the worst, such as starvation, confinement, slavery, and abuse. He travels from one location to the next, searching and hoping to find some trace of a home. And though the road is rough and the journey is long, taking up the personality of his father helps his drive to conquer his fears and exhaustion. Forgotten Fire shines on those who were courageous enough to stand against the wrong in an effort to keep alive what they knew was right…show more content…
Although he may help with the work, he’s still the baby of the family. When he sees his brothers murdered by the Turks, something inside him changes. He is no longer to act as the baby of the family, his childhood disappears in the blink of an eye and he is forced to become a man. His primary reaction and attitude throughout the book is he believes he is going to die. But, he clings on to the little hope he has of survival until he loses his next oldest brother causing him to feel as if he wants to die; he’s ready for it. Later in the novel, it seems, Vahan realizes he is the man of the family now, and must keep alive their name. He recognizes that even though his family has been torn apart, and most of them are dead, he must save what is left. Vahan personifies his father; he does not feel strong enough to carry on but he knows his father would have been able to fight through the hurt. Due to having his role models removed from his life, it makes Vahan dig deep and become his own role model helping him to never give up until he finds a home again. When we, Americans, reflect on World War I, many of us picture the United States, and several other countries, fighting against the Germans. We think about our country’s survival, when in reality, there is so much more than that. That is what “the forgotten fire” is: an account of what was absent when historians decided what would be put into books, the left overs. Hardly
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