A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah: Song Analysis
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” (BrainyQoute, n.d.). This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson demonstrates the theme that it is always important to take your own path and have dreams. This universal theme can be found in many works, including the song “Am I Wrong?” by Nico and Vinz and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Personally, I can connect to this theme because I have many dreams and ambitions, and because it is important to me to take your own path. The song “Am I Wrong?” contains the theme of taking your own path and having dreams and ambitions, and this relates to Ishmael Beah in A Long Way Gone because Beah follows his own path by being unique and independent. The Norwegian duo composed …show more content…
This is demonstrated in two ways: by Ishmael’s unique love of rap/hip hop music, and by Ishmael’s independence. First, one of Beah’s defining traits is his interest in western rap/hip hop music. He falls in love with this type of music after “[sitting] there mesmerized by the song, trying to understand what the black fellows were saying.” (Beah, 2007, p. 6). This trait makes Beah unique because not many Sierra Leoneans are exposed to this kind of music, and also because his music saves his life several times. For example, when Beah and his group are about to be sentenced to death in a seaside Sierra Leonean village, the chief finds one of Beah’s music cassettes and, after listening to them, decides that Beah and his group are just “children looking for safety.” (Beah, 2007, p. 68). Returning to the theme, Beah’s uniqueness through his love of western rap/hip hop music relates to the previously discussed theme. Beah is traveling on his own path because through his love of rap/hip hop music, he is unique and not like everyone else. Second, Beah takes his own path through his independent attitude and behaviour. Throughout his memoirs, he is alone for long stretches of time and, for the most part, does not let others control his decisions. For example, when Beah is on the run, he finds himself in a large forest, and he decides to stay. Beah writes that he “spent more than a month in the forest.” (2007, p. 54). By staying alone in the forest, Beah is taking his own path. Furthermore, Beah’s decision to leave Sierra Leone is another example of how he takes his own path. He concludes that he is done with being stuck in Sierra Leone with the war, and takes the dangerous road out of Sierra Leone and to New York City. His independent journey connects well to the lyric, “I’m walking down this road of mine, this road that I call home.” (Metrolyrics, n.d.). By
Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
579 Words | 3 PagesIshmael Beah has experienced extreme hardships ever since he was a little boy. Growing up in Sierra Leone during war causes Ishmael’s life to revolve around such. In the nonfiction book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldiers, Ishmael Beah shares personal accounts of what it was like growing up in a period of violence and separation. Ishmael and his family live in a small village called Mattru Jong. When Ishmael is twelve-years-old, his village is attacked by rebels.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1802 Words | 8 PagesMarch 23, 1991. That was the day the Sierra Leone Civil War begun, and the day that a whole lot of lives were ruined. Families were split apart. Men and boys were taken to become soldiers, and do the unthinkable. Ishmael Beah was one of those boys.
The Role Of Music In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
318 Words | 2 PagesIn Ishmael Beah’s personal memoir, A Long Way Gone, music courses through the story quite often. Music is first seen in Ishmael’s peaceful childhood. He and his friends enjoy singing and dancing along to music, in particular, Rap Music. As the story progresses, and the war becomes more prevalent in the young boys lives, rap continues to play a substantial role in their lives, just in a different way. At the end of Ishmael’s life story, there is yet another role that music plays.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
932 Words | 4 PagesThe journey that Ishmael embarked reaped him of his childhood and the basic neccessities that humans need, and he struggles to find them again after a traumatic experience in
The Significance Of My Creative Title A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1212 Words | 5 PagesIshmael was troublesome to his family but he followed ethical behavior based on learning from his family. His squad took a little boy’s two boiled ears of corn while they were suffering for foods. The boy’s mother gave them more corns later, he “felt guilty about it for a few minutes. ”(31) Ishmael is separated with his brother later and forms a
Ishmael Beah Innocence
660 Words | 3 PagesIf there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (54). The words of Ishmael 's father help galvanize Beah to continue on his journey although it is harsh and unbearable. Beah is struggling with depression and isolation, but the words of his father give him a sense of hope and light at the end of the tunnel that he will survive. The war was harsh, and the cruel and unjust treatment of the soldiers causes Ishmael Beah to live his childhood in fear and discomfort. He exclaims that “we were always either at the front lines, watching a war movie, or doing drugs.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
235 Words | 1 PagesWhen a boy gets lost at a grocery store, he will usually start looking around for his mother. If he does not find his mother, he will run through the aisles and yell his mother’s name. He will eventually think he has lost his her forever and start crying. Not until his mother shows up and there he is happy—as if nothing ever happened. They go home to their house and their joyous family and live a happy life.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah Character Analysis
657 Words | 3 PagesIn the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has to overcome his fears and desperation especially when he ends up in villages that dislike little kids because of the assumption that they are rebel soldiers. Sometimes he comes face to face with death like the time when some of the villagers who were suffering the civil war, capture Ishmael and his new accompanied friends they were saying ”We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding. The crowds shouted, drown the rebels”(Beah 38). When the village guards found a rap cassette in Ishmael's pocket they played the music and it pleased the chief and so they were excused from execution and as a result they were offered to also stay in the village for how long they wanted. This part in the story paves a path from Ishmael to talk and although that was one of his major obstacles pertaining to his life he succeeded and faced adversity by pleading that they were not rebels but
Symbolism In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
607 Words | 3 PagesHow would you feel if you were recruited as a soldier during war? Since 2001, the participation of child soldiers has been reported in 21 on-going or recent armed conflicts in almost every region of the world. The importance of this is portrayed in Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone. The author believes that innocent kids should not be selected to fight as soldiers, lose their innocence killing people, witnessing violent scenes and suffer because of war.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
836 Words | 4 PagesOne of the biggest problems in A Long Way Gone is war. Ishmael Beah is trying to show us the multiple issues that war can cause. Ishmael clearly shows how traumatizing a war can be to anyone. The biggest effects of the war are shown through the loss of kind and basic human interaction, the death and fighting that is happening, and the mental health issues of people who have been touched by the war.
Long Way Gone Rehabilitation
834 Words | 4 PagesA Long Way Gone: War and Rehabilitation Following the life of Ishmael Beah in his autobiography, A Long Way Gone, readers experience how a young boy adjusted to drastic changes in lifestyles. The first- and perhaps more marked- change in lifestyle was when he became a child soldier in the Sierra Leone Army. The second was when he was taken away to be rehabilitated by UNICEF. Although there are several important components in both Ishmael’s life at war and his life during rehabilitation, it is his relationship with fear, how he deals with trauma, and his character in general which significantly share resemblances in each of the two mentioned lifestyles.
Music In A Long Way Gone
844 Words | 4 Pages“ You can write the lyrics of the songs you like on the album and we can learn to sing them together, if you want” (Beah 163).Writing down lyrics to songs was one of the things that Ishmael did with his brother and friends before the war. This brings back vivid memories as the songs are inextricably tied with his childhood, and Ishmael finds peace in Esther and she becomes his first friend outside of the war. During rehabilitation Ishmael is struggling through the nightmares of war, but with the help of Esther and music he finds himself once
Ishmael Beah's Memories
775 Words | 4 PagesMemories “Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose”(Arnold). In the book a long way gone a boy named Ishmael beah tells his story. In this novel Ishmael’s village is eventually raided and he becomes on his own. Through being on his own he thinks of the past and memories of a better life. These memories that he thinks of can hinder him and help him along the way through his journey.
Adah In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible
445 Words | 2 PagesAdah’s journey adds a darker hue to the book and adds emphasis to the overall effect of change over time. Nothing remains constant as all things change; this is the universal law of change portrayed through The Poisonwood
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah: An Analysis
1841 Words | 8 PagesTo a child in a country of war, life can change “rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one [has] any control over anything. [They have] yet to...implement survival tactics, which [is] what it came down to” (Beah 29). Children who become soldiers are given hardly any choice because their families are usually dead, and without the army they have no family or way to survive during the war. The book “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah tells the story of how Ishmael became a child soldier in Sierra Leone during the war.
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