War Brothers

“The slums of Gulu, where Tony lived, were only blocks from Jacob’s big house, but really, it might as well have been a different world.”

Jacob is characterized as coming from a privileged socioeconomic class in War Brothers, in contrast to his friend Tony, who attends their private Christian school on a scholarship. However, the violence and trauma of their time with the Lord’s Resistance Army will collapse these distinctions, as the boys become more defined by their shared experiences in the army than by their individual backgrounds.

“At first, Jacob had felt sorry for them. It was easy to feel badly for a few children. But now, they numbered in the thousands. There were just too many to feel sorry about.”

This passage references the “night commuters,” the children who come to Gulu at night to sleep on the streets rather than risk kidnapping in their villages. Here at the outset, before his time in the Lord’s Resistance Army, Jacob still demonstrates an emotional disconnect from the events around him, which shows his naivety in the face of future dangers.

“The whole family walked to church twice a week. It was far away and it took hours to reach it. Mother was Catholic too, and so she went to the medicine man only when the Big God did not help, only when necessary. When Father became too sick to walk to church, she felt that it was necessary.”

Oteka’s late family shows a common situation in Uganda with regard to religion: The syncretization of traditional religious practices with mainstream Christianity. While Oteka’s father does not believe in medicine men, they still visit them on occasion for things that the “Big God” (i.e., the Christian god) cannot help with. This introduces the important motif of religion in the novel (See: Symbols & Motifs).