Angelo Pacheco

I.S 227

701
12/20/16

ALWW Essay
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, is a novel about Salva, a Lost Boy
of Sudan. He lives in war trenched country so he decides, like many others, to flee
to safety. He faced many challenges throughout the both of his journeys for safety
but at the same time, he had several survival factors that allowed him to continue
and survive. Such factors include his desire to see his family again, his uncle, and
taking small steps at a time.

His desire to see his family again motivated him to keep going on throughout the
journeys to therefore his family is an important survival factor to him. His desire to
see is family gain was an important factor to Salva's motivation since the journey
proved difficult for him. As result, he started to lag behind and later believed that
he would not be able to keep moving so he used the memory of his family, to keep
moving on with the group. Each time Salva would thing of his family, and his
village, and he was somehow able to keep his wounded feet moving forward one
painful step at a time (54) the memory of his family was a fuel to his motivation
which he needed to keep moving along in his journey to safety. If I die now, I will
never see my family again (11) His family also gives him more bravery like

shown in the last quote. He was being pointed with the tip of a gun and he was
about to collapse but he thought of how if he died now, he will never see his family
again so he regained courage and tried not to collapse. Overall, his family is a
major factor for him to continue to survive his two journeys to safety.
The novel could clearly show how Salva's uncle is important to him during the
first journey. Throughout the story, his uncle is constantly motivating him and
helping him during the journey. For example, Salva and his uncle had found out
that Marial, Salva's friend had been killed and eaten by a lion. Salva got terrified
when he received these new so therefore his uncle tried to help him by comforting
him. Salva, I have a gun. I will shoot any lion that comes near (41). It was later
stated that he would have gone crazy with fear if it were not for his uncle. His
uncle reassured him, like in many other situations, which was something Salva
needed the whole journey to keep moving along. In addition, his uncle was a great
motivation for Salva and this was very important to Salva when they crossed the
Akoro dessert. He had started to slow down and later believed that he was going to
be left behind so his uncle came and started to help him by finding ways to
motivate him. He found ways to motivate him like calling him by his full name.
Uncle reached into his bag. He took out a tamarind and gave it to Salva (54).
Uncle was a very important necessity for Salva since he was a major source of
motivation, help and comfort.

Salva's third and last major survival factor would be him taking small steps at a
time to each major goal. This was taught by his uncle when they were crossing the
Akoro dessert because Salva had started to lag behind the group so he would able
to keep going. This was important to him throughout his whole life because in the
novel it is stated that he used this same method when he began his project. Day by
day, solving one problem at a time, Salva moved toward his goal.(?). In addition,
as he was crossing to the Akoro dessert, he began to lag behind so he used his
uncles advice to take small steps at a time