Figuring out who you are is pretty much the bread and butter of being a teenager, but Vahan is no ordinary teen. In the beginning of Forgotten Fire, his identity is that of an innocent child, a younger brother and a student. But his experiences strip him (and his fellow Armenian prisoners) of his identity. He is treated like an animal, barely fed clean food, and more—and in facing the atrocities of the genocide, he loses his innocence. Forgotten Fire is partly about surviving a horrible moment in history, but it's also about Vahan figuring out how to be himself in the midst of it.
Questions About Identity
- How does Vahan decide what to do next or how to act? Who or what does he look to when he's figuring out what kind of guy he wants to be?
- Why is Vahan's dad so influential in his life? How does his dad's advice to him when he was younger help him now?
- Is Vahan "steel" like his dad wants him to be? He doesn't think he is anything like his dad, but what evidence are we given that he is?
- Vahan pretends to be a deaf mute, a Turkish soldier, and even a girl to survive. What is the effect of this on him?
Chew on This
Vahan is constantly pretending to be someone else in order to survive, but in the process, he finds who he actually is.
When the soldiers killed Vahan's family, they took away a piece of him that he never gets back—not even in Constantinople. Without his family, Vahan doesn't know who he is.