A Long Way Gone Response While reading A Long Way Gone, I noticed that family is an important subject throughout the book. In the beginning, Ishmael has a mother, father, older brother named Junior, and a younger brother. Ishmael and Junior were very close. When Junior would come home from school, he would bring Ishmael rap cassettes;they would memorize the lyrics and dance to the beat. Ishmael had a rough relationship with his father because of all the stepmothers who had destroyed it. Ishmael’s mother was always happy to see her sons when they came to visit. Ishmael’s grandmother had a huge influence on Ishmael. She told him that she tried to be like the moon, and after telling him that Ishmael tried to do the same. One day, Ishmael and …show more content…
Ishmael hoped his family was safe and not heartbroken over Junior and him. At the time, Ishmael was traveling with six other boys. All of the boys stayed quiet all afraid to speak about their families. After this, the boys were their own little family. They would travel village to village just trying to get away from the rebels. These were rough times for Ishmael and the boys;they would go without food for a couple of days. Ishmael explains that they were so hungry that it hurt to drink water. The attack in Kamator was the last time that Ishmael saw Junior. Ishmael was now all alone. This was very hard on Ishmael. When Ishmael was in the forest, he thought about how his grandfather, Junior, and him would take walks on the paths around the coffee grounds. During the visits, their grandfather would give them a special medicine that supposedly made you smarter. Ishmael would take it before every test. Every single time that Ishmael’s memories of his family come up, it brings him strength and the perseverance to find them. In one village, Ishmael ran into some boys that he knew. From then on, he started traveling with those seven boys. They were like a family;they were the only people that Ishmael had. One
However, many people died during the attack. Next, there was the separation of Ishmael and his friends. When Ishmael and his friends were staying in the village of Kamator, the rebels attacked. This caused Ishmael to become separated from his friends. The attack was too sudden for Ishmael to go look for his friends.
Ishmael Beah being number one for he is the author and narrator of this account. He retells his journey, fighting to run from war and battle with internal struggles. After being captured, brainwashed and beaten Ishmael is finally given a break. He has the chance to recovery and is reunited with his Uncle Lennie. Lennie assists Ishmael in his recovery and helps him to remember the happy times with his loved ones.
They stayed in Mattru Jong until the rebels attacked. After running for hours and only stopping to rest, They tried to go back and gather resources, but almost died because of it. Because of the lack of food, Ishmael’s group returned to Mattru Jong and were caught. They were about to be killed, but government troops drew rebels away, so Ishmael and the other kids lined up with him could escape. After a few days of hiding, he found Junior and Talloi, and they decided to go somewhere away from the rebels.
The survivors and the brothers, Ishmael and Junior, are separated after the attack from the rebels, the only thing keeping the pair together is their dependence on each other. As Ishmael arrives to the deserted village, the old says, “there is no need to know my name. Just refer to me as the old man who got left behind when you get to the next village” (Beah 56).
As a young child, Ishmael “had no trust or any kind of normality”(2) in his life, Ishmael wanted to have a normal childhood; he wanted to have a place to call home and live with a family who was willing to take care of him, so ismael moved to new york while moving to new york ishmael met his new adoptive mother and now ishamel relizes he has to step into normality here in new york, what was not so normal for ishmael was that he never had a report card, and ishmael needed a report
Ishmael has accept the fact that the war has ruined his enjoyment of meeting new people. Because of him going into villages and being chased out because they believed he was a rebel, Or having to go through other villages because he knew nobody there and he knew what was coming to their village and he did not want to stay had ruined the experience for him until later on in his life. Ishmael's experiences force him to deny his emotional side in order to survive. His flight from RUF attacks on the various villages in Sierra Leone requires him to let go of attachments to family and friends. Although he holds out hope to see his family, he has no choice but to close off himself to the world.
“I feel as if there is nothing left for me to be alive for. I have no family, it is just me.” (Chapter 18) Family is usually something many people take for granted. Beah along his journey of being a “boy soldier” would’ve wished for his family to be there for him.
Towards the beginning, Ishmael was always on the run. He was running and hiding to survive. On page 69 Ishmael says, “...I was starting over and over. I was always on the move, always going somewhere.” If Ishmael wanted to survive, he had to keep moving.
Once Ishmael is in the rehabilitation center he opens up to Ester. “I feel as if there is nothing left for me to be alive for. I have no family, it is just me. No one will be able to tell me stories about my childhood” (Beah, 167). Family was important to Ishmael and the war tore it apart from
Ishmael has a flashback of his life in the war. In his dream he encounters a body wrapped in white bed sheets, and as he unwraps it he realizes it is his own face he is looking at. He then awakens, sweating and on the ground. He says, “I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories” (Beah 19). Even being in a different country cannot take away the hell that Ishmael has been through.
Just loke Ishmael, he learns to be strong minded through his experiences. Although both of these characters seem similar there is one fact that makes their outcome different. Chava is similar to Ishmael in many ways. One similarity is they both lost a loved one during war. It was very rough for Chava seeing his friends killed in front of him because another military group came in, and saved him but came in too late to save his friends.
The major theme in the story A Long Way Gone is that with family and love a person can make it through anything. Overall Ishmael’s story is a very powerful, eye opening read; it informs people on a subject that some know little to nothing about, the civil war in Sierra Leone. Beah uses the theme of family and love, along with the use of symbolism and other literary devices, to inform a larger audience of the issues that he and others had to face while trying to survive in a war zone. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war.
How does one react to facing adversity, well that answer can be found in the book as Ishmael Beah progresses and get older and his actions and thoughts start to gradually change as he gets acclimated to the life of a boy soldier. The actions that Ishmael take throughout the story shape the person who he becomes who overtakes adversity itself. Ishmael and his friends traveled long roads and rivers but along
When Ishmael is going through rehabilitation, he meets a nurse named Esther who tries to become his friend by giving him a gift that contained a Walkman and cassette. “When I unwrapped it, I jumped up and hugged her” (Beah 154), Beah says. When Ishmael realizes that he is once again able to listen to music he is overcome with a joy he has not felt in a long time. Esther takes advantage of this and creates a friendship with Ishmael, who originally comes to see her to listen to music but eventually forms an actual relationship with the UNICEF worker. Esther also recreates Ishmael’s childhood by bringing back the things he loved before the war.
Through this quote you are able to see just how much memories of his life have affected his journey through it and how he thinks tom his family for guidance and help in the hard and sad times of his life. In conclusion you see how memories both hindered and helped Ishmael on his journey of life by himself. In that some of them made him more sad and distracted him from what 's happening in his life now. And others helped him stay motivated and kept him on his journey.