What is the What by Dave Eggers

“Death took boys every day, and in a familiar way: quickly and decisively, without much warning or fanfare. These boys were faces to me, boys I had sat next to for a meal, or who I had seen fishing in a river. I began to wonder if they were all the same, if there was any reason one of them would be taken by death while another would not. I began to expect it at any moment” (198). It was possible that it was not random, that God was taking the weak from the group. Perhaps only the strongest were meant to make it to Ethiopia; there was only enough Ethiopia for the best of the boys” (198).

Achak Deng grows accustomed to death because it is an atrocity that surrounds him every day. He travels with a group of young boys, much like himself, that are forced to flee southern Sudan due to the civil war. The journey to the safe territory of Ethiopia is brutal, but necessary in order to evade certain death. During their travel, the boys encounter numerous ways of dying. Most perished due to disease, exhaustion, or animal attacks. Achak observes members of his group dying from these causes on a daily basis. When a boy became sick from exhaustion or disease, he would find a tree to sit up against. He would then rest his head against the tree and “…the life in him would fall away and his flesh would return to the earth” (198). He notices the number of boys in the group drastically dwindling during the last stretch before Ethiopia. This is when he realizes that “…only the strongest were meant to make it to Ethiopia…” (198).

Tree roots depict the setting of numerous deaths. A sickly child spends its final moments resting against the bottom of a tree until its soul is absorbed by the roots of the earth. The mangled tree roots also symbolize Achak’s tumultuous journey. His past is painful and complex.