A Long Walk to Water
Linda sue park, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.
In addition to focusing on the physical realities of people struggling to survive—such as the need for water and shelter— A Long Walk to Water focuses on the psychological and emotional aspects of the struggle for survival. It’s not enough to have food and water , Park suggests. Rather, to survive in dangerous times, people need to want to survive, which requires finding a source of strength, determination, and hope.
In tough times, the book shows, hope can be as important as food and water, if not more so. First and foremost, Park dramatizes the importance of hope through the relationship between Salva Dut and his uncle Jewiir . Uncle Jewiir teaches Salva how to remain optimistic, even when it seems circumstances could not be any worse. In one of the most poignant scenes in the book, Salva collapses in the middle of the desert, overcome not only by hunger and thirst, but by despair. Jewiir compels Salva to keep moving, urging him to make progress by focusing on taking one step at a time. As Jewiir sees it, the key to holding onto hope is concentrating on concrete tasks instead of becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of the greater goal. If Salva were to stop and think about the magnitude of what he has to do—i.e., walk all the way into Ethiopia—he might give up. Instead, with Jewiir’s help, Salva concentrates on doing as much as he can, each moment. At the same time, Salva finds motivation in his desire to reunite with the rest of his family. Even after years of not seeing them, he continues to hope that they’re still alive. As A Long Walk to Water portrays it, hope is both idealistic and practical, universal and particular. Salva’s hopefulness keeps him focused on the long-term goals of surviving the civil war and reuniting with his family, but it also helps him concentrate on short-term necessities, like continuing to place one foot ahead of the other.
As the story goes on, Park shows that hope, in addition to being a powerful force for survival, can be passed on to other people. Just as Uncle Jewiir’s calm, cautiously optimistic leadership inspires Salva to stay strong, Salva’s hopefulness inspires other people. As a young man, Salva successfully leads over a thousand younger children to safety in Kenya. He takes inspiration from Uncle Jewiir by encouraging the children to concentrate on moving “one step at a time.” Later, when he moves to the United States, Salva’s hope leads to even more remarkable progress. Speaking in schools, universities, and churches, Salva inspires Americans to donate their time and money to improving the situation in Sudan. His actions—grounded in his confidence that Sudan can be made safer and better—result in hundreds of wells being built throughout the country, helping many thousands of Sudanese people. In this way, the book shows that hope isn’t just an emotion—but, on the contrary, it can make possible the enactment of real, tangible changes for the better.
Hope and Resilience ThemeTracker
Hope and Resilience Quotes in A Long Walk to Water
As Salva spoke, Uncle nodded or shook his head. His face became very solemn when Salva told him that he had not seen nor heard a single word of his family in all that time. Salva's voice trailed of, and he lowered his head. He was glad to see Uncle again, but it looked as if he might not be much help either. Uncle was quiet for a moment. Then he patted Salva’s shoulder. "Eh, Nephew!" he said in a cheerful voice. "We are together now, so I will look after you!"
Soon he was crying so hard that he could hardly get his breath. He could not think; he could barely see. He had to slow down, and for the first rime on the long journey, he began to lag behind the group. Stumbling about blindly, he did not notice the group drawing farther and farther ahead of him. As if by magic, Uncle was suddenly at his side. […] Salva lifted his head, the sobs interrupted by surprise. "Do you see that group of bushes?" Uncle said, pointing. "You need only to walk as far as those bushes.
He knows it will be hard for me , Salva realized. He does not want to leave me there, but he has to go back and fight for our people. I mustn’t act like a bay—I must try to be strong …
How can I go on without them? But how can I not go on? They would want me to survive. . . to grow up and make something of my life, . . . to honor their memories. What was it Uncle had said during that first terrible day in the desert? "Do you see that group of bushes? You need only to walk as far as those bushes . . .” Uncle had helped him get through the desert that way, bit by bit, one step at a time. Perhaps . . . perhaps Salva could get through life at the camp in the same way.
Salva stood still inside the terminal doors for a few moments. Leaving the airport felt like leaving his old life forever-Sudan, his village, his family. . . . Tears came to his eyes, perhaps from the cold air blowing in through the open doors. His new family was already outside; they turned and looked back at him. Salva blinked away the tears and took his first step into a new life in America.
Nya went back and picked up the plastic can. She felt as if she were flying. School! She would learn to read and write!
Whenever he found himself losing hope, Salva would take a deep breath and think of his uncle’s words. A step at as time. One problem at a time—just figure out this one problem. Day by day, solving one problem at a time, Salva moved toward his goal.
The man smiled. "What is your name?” he asked. "I am Nya." "I am happy to meet you, Nya," he said. "My name is Salva. "
A Long Walk to Water
By linda sue park, a long walk to water summary and analysis of chapters 1-4.
Southern Sudan, 2008
Nya carries the empty plastic water container, which is much easier than when she has to carry it home full. There are thorns, heat, and time—and that is it.
Southern Sudan, 1985
Eleven-year-old Salva sits perfectly, ostensibly paying attention to the teacher but dreaming about when he can get out on the road home. At home, he speaks Dinka, but here at school, his teacher teaches them Arabic.
Salva knows he is lucky to be at school, though he cannot attend during the dry season because his family moves away from their village. Salva’s father is successful, owning many cattle and working as a judge. Salva has three brothers and two sisters.
Today Salva wishes he were at home with the cattle. He thinks of driving them with the local boys to the good grazing areas. The cows only need a bit of watching, and there is plenty of time to play. Salva and the boys make cows out of clay and try to make the best one. Sometimes they practice shooting. It is a good day when they can get a guinea hen or squirrel and cook it up and eat it.
Salva is currently hungry and is dreaming of milk. He imagines his mother looking out to the road for when he will come home. He will see her headscarf from afar and when she sees him she’ll get his milk ready.
The teacher stops. A cracking sound like gunshots is heard outside. It is silent, but then suddenly the cracks and pops are louder and insistent. The teacher screams for them all to get down. Some boys are frozen in shock. Outside people are running. The teacher tells them urgently to get into the bush and do not go home since they will be going into the villages. He urges them once more.
Salva does not know much about the war, which started two years ago. He does know the rebels are from Southern Sudan, where he lives. They are fighting against the government, which wants to make all of the country Muslim. Here in the South, they do not want to be forced to practice Islam. Now the war has come here.
Salva is near the end of the line of boys and his heart is pounding. He wants to go home but out in the street women and children and men are running, kicking up dust. Salva starts running as fast as he can until he gets into the bush.
Nya tries not to step on one of the spiky plants, but she lifts her heel up and sees a huge thorn embedded in it. She grabs another thorn to try and dislodge the first.
Salva hears a huge boom and sees a blaze and smoke behind him. He sees a plane veering in the sky but can no longer make out the school.
He runs until he cannot run anymore, then walks. All around him are people walking and he searches anxiously for his family. Someone calls out for them to separate by village. Salva stands with the people from his village of Loun-Ariik, and while he recognizes some people, his family is not there.
That night the people sleep by the road. The next morning they see the rebels, all carrying large guns. The guns are not pointed at the crowd but the men are watchful and fierce.
Later in the afternoon, the group arrives at the rebel camp where they are separated into men, and women and children. Salva does not know which group to join and heads towards the men but a soldier with a gun stops him and looks at him. His insides knotted in fear, Salva waits as the man points him to the women and children, laughingly telling him that he is not a man yet.
The rebels move on the next morning, carrying all of their supplies. One man does not want to go and a soldier strikes him with his gun.
Salva stays with his village group. That night they find a barn to sleep in. He cannot stop thinking about his family.
In the morning Salva opens his eyes and realizes with a start that no one else is there –they’d left him.
Nya notices all the life at the pond –women, children, birds flapping and twittering, herds of cattle. She uses the hollowed gourd to dip into the muddy water and fills the plastic container over and over again. She places a cloth donut on her head and then sets the container on it to begin the walk back. If she is lucky, she will be home by noon.
Salva’s eyes fill with tears. He knows he has been left because he is a child and the people think he’d slow them down.
Looking outside, he sees a small pond near the barn. A woman with Dinka scars is there. He is relieved she is not one of the Nuer, a rival tribe. For hundreds of years, the tribes had warred over the land with the most water.
The woman, who is quite old, stares at him and finally says he must be hungry. She gives him a few handfuls of peanuts and he thanks her. She asks where his people are and he cannot speak for the tears. She asks if he is an orphan and he explains what happened. She asks how he will find them and he admits he does not know.
Salva wonders if he ought to stay here until the fighting stops, so for the next three days, he works very hard for the old woman. He can hear the distant booming of artillery.
Unfortunately, the old woman says that the pond is drying up and the fighting is not stopping, so she is going to a local village and he must leave her. Salva is confused as she explains that as an old woman she will be left alone but if he is with her it will be more dangerous. She is sympathetic, but will not budge.
Salva has no idea where to go or what to do. As the sun sets, though, he hears a buzz of voices and sees about a dozen Dinka villagers.
Back at home, Nya has a meal of boiled sorghum and milk. Her mother tells her to take her sister Akeer with her to the watering hole because she must learn. This will be Nya’s second trip to the pond; this is what she does for seven months of the year.
Salva scans the faces and is morose that he does not see his family. The old woman comes out and asks if they will take him. Some are hesitant, noting they already have mouths to feed. One woman looks at him, though, then at one of the men. They say he will come with them.
Salva bids the old woman goodbye and joins the group. He is determined to stay quiet and not lag behind.
The days are never-ending. They walk and walk more. The terrain moves from scrub to woodland. More people join them on their walk to nowhere.
Salva’s hunger astonishes him in its intensity; nothing else seems real. He falls a little bit behind one day. A boy named Buksa lags behind as well, but he seems to be listening to something. Salva strains his ears but hears nothing.
Buksa smiles and tells Salva to get the others because a bird he was listening to has led him to a beehive.
Salva rushes off, elated at this imminent feast.
The major thing for readers to note about this novel is that it is based on a true story. Park was friends with Salva Dut and knew his incredible story. She consulted him personally and reviewed his own memoir in which he chronicled some of the things he endured. For the story of Nya, she based it off of her research on Sudanese villages, as well as Salva’s advice and her own husband’s trip to Sudan with Salva. Thus, it is important for readers to be aware that all the major events of Salva’s story are true, and that only some of the dialogue and the character of Nya herself are fictional.
Park weaves together her two stories in a way that they are different but similar, parallel but eventually conflating. Salva and Nya are both eleven years old when their stories begin. They both understand to an extent the problems that plague their country—war, lack of drinkable water, etc.—but do the best they can do to survive and are often concerned with their immediate family before anything else. Nya has an arduous trek to fetch water for her family, sees her sister almost die, and observes her mother’s fears that the constant warfare between the Dinka and the Nuer will result in the deaths of her father and/or brothers. Salva’s home life before the village is attacked is a lot more ideal, but it is short-lived in that at only eleven years old, Salva is forced to flee into the bush and leave his family or face being swept up into the fighting.
Both of the children understand their duties and what is necessary to survive. Nya is a more skeptical figure while Salva retains hope a bit more easily. Nevertheless, Salva’s experience is arguably a more perilous one; over the course of his exile from home, he endures starvation, heat exhaustion, dehydration, almost being shot, almost drowning, almost being attacked by crocodiles, and almost being forced to fight. He loses a best friend, his uncle, and, to the best of his knowledge at the time, his entire family. Despite all of this, Salva maintains the will to endure.
Salva is by all accounts an incredible figure, and one most people would deem heroic, but Park writes him in a very relatable, human way. He is a little stubborn, a little dreamy, a little weak. He doesn’t understand everything that is going on around him. He is a real child who desperately misses his family, wonders what will happen to himself, and spends time lost in the memories of the life he once had.
Salva’s reliability is in sharp contrast to the backdrop of the novel, which is of a hellishness that most readers will not be able to grasp. The Sudanese Civil War, discussed in the “Other” section of this study guide, swallowed up almost everyone in its wake and lingered for decades. The things Salva and Nya experience as a result of the fighting and the condition of Sudan will likely not personally resonate with Western readers. However, Park’s real skill as a writer is that in her straightforward, lucid prose she makes a complicated situation digestible, conveys trauma without being prurient or obfuscating, and allows readers, through walking alongside Salva and Nya, to consider big themes like survival and courage and family as well as their own place in the world.
A Long Walk to Water Questions and Answers
The Question and Answer section for A Long Walk to Water is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
How did Salva’s circumstances change from good … to bad … to good?
You can check out the short summaties of these chapters below:
https://www.gradesaver.com/a-long-walk-to-water/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-4
What is the main event in chapter 14-16
The main event is Salva as a young man. Now an engineer, he is finding water for his countrymen. This is really Salva's transition from boy to man both in the United States and in Africa.
are the dinka loyal people?
That's purely subjective. One can't label a whole population of a certain people loyal or not. They are individuals.
Study Guide for A Long Walk to Water
A Long Walk to Water study guide contains a biography of Linda Sue Park, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
- About A Long Walk to Water
- A Long Walk to Water Summary
- Character List
Lesson Plan for A Long Walk to Water
- About the Author
- Study Objectives
- Common Core Standards
- Introduction to A Long Walk to Water
- Relationship to Other Books
- Bringing in Technology
- Notes to the Teacher
- Related Links
- A Long Walk to Water Bibliography
Wikipedia Entries for A Long Walk to Water
- Introduction
- Water for South Sudan
A Long Walk to Water
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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 1-2
Chapters 3-4
Chapters 5-7
Chapters 8-9
Chapters 10-11
Chapters 12-13
Chapters 14-15
Chapters 16-18
Character Analysis
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Discussion Questions
The author combines two parallel plots that only connect at the end. How do they connect? What does that connection demonstrate?
What is the significance of Uncle Jewiir? What part does he play in Salva's life and personal philosophy?
Though the travelers never encounter the war itself, they are constantly running from it. What does Park seem to be saying about the unnamed casualties of war?
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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Survival — A Long To Water Quotes
A Long to Water Quotes
- Categories: Hope Resilience Survival
About this sample
Words: 664 |
Published: Mar 19, 2024
Words: 664 | Page: 1 | 4 min read
Table of contents
I. introduction, a. linda sue park's novel "a long walk to water", b. quotes in literature serve as powerful tools, c. the quotes in "a long walk to water" shed light, ii. the theme of survival in "a long walk to water", a. the quote "i will make it to nya's village. i must. i will. i will make it or die trying", b. this quote reflects the characters' relentless pursuit of survival, c. the theme of survival in "a long walk to water", iii. the theme of resilience in "a long walk to water", a. the quote "it was my father who taught me to value myself", b. the characters in the novel exemplify resilience, c. through the various characters' journeys of resilience in "a long walk to water,".
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Home / Essay Samples / Literature / Literary Criticism / “A Long Walk to Water”: the Theme of Challenges and Leadership
"A Long Walk to Water": the Theme of Challenges and Leadership
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Lines of Difficulties and Leadership in 'A Long Walk to Water'
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