Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah decides to write about his time as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. When he made the decision to publish his story, Beah was trying to tell three main messages to his readers. He was first attempting to get the message out to the world that conflict in Sierra Leone was a serious issue, given that at the time that he wrote his book, most Americans couldn’t even locate Sierra Leone on a map; he also tried to show how human nature can cause people to do uncharacteristically terrible things in desperate situations. Finally, Beah was also trying to portray the message that despite the immense, grief, guilt, anger, and pain that people can feel after being affected by a violent situation, a person can always be healed, if enough work is put into helping them, no matter how damaged that

By sharing his own experiences, Beah is able to show his audience the consequences of war with an incredibly impactful way; one that can only be delivered through personal experience. One example of this is when Ishmael talks about slitting a man’s throat, during his time as a soldier: “His Adam’s apple made way for the sharp knife, and I turned the bayonet on its zigzag edge as I brought it out. His eyes rolled up and they looked me straight in the eye before they suddenly stopped in a frightened glance, as if caught by surprise” (Beah 125). This passage shows how brainwashing has affected the life of Ishmael, as it did to hundreds of child soldiers, and how ruthlessness became a part of their lifestyle. In America, the average fifteen year old’s biggest problems are grades or school work, but in these areas of war and devastation, childhoods are being ripped away and kids have to worry about killing and