Book Review Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
For this month’s SSR I read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. The author is Ishmael Beah and the publisher is Sarah Crichton Books. The copyright date is 2007 and there are 218 pages in this book. The genre of non-fiction is autobiography. It is in Ishmael Beah’s point of view. The information is organized in chapters. The events are told in the chapters in chronological order. Each chapter describes a part of Ishmael’s journey during the war. There is not a table of contents or index.
The book starts out when Ishmael, his brother, Junior, and his friend Talloi go to Mattru Jong for a talent show. When they arrived there, the rebels attacked. During this time, Ishmael experienced what the war felt like for the first time. Ishmael
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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. He learned how to survive by himself. Soon after, Ishmael met up with a group of boys his age. Like him, they were also running away from the war. There were six boys and their names were Alhaji, Saidu, Musa, Kanei, Moriba, and Jumah. The boys and Ishmael became friends and traveled together. However, while they were traveling, several villages thought they were fighting for the rebels so the villagers ran away or questioned them. After that, Ishmael and his group of friends arrived at a village guarded by army soldiers and joined the army. The lieutenant chose several boys to fight in the war. Ishmael and his friends were chosen. They were taught how to shoot a gun and other military exercises. Their first mission was to ambush a group of rebels. During the ambush, many people from both sides died, including Musa. Also, during this battle, Ishmael killed several rebels. He started to know what is was like to
Summary Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
357 Words | 2 PagesA Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is the true story of Ishmael Beah’s, the author and narrator, experience leading into and eventually becoming a child soldier in Sierra Leone’s military during the Sierra Leonean Civil War. The story begins with Beah, then a twelve year old child, leaving his home village of Mattru Jong to attend a talent show where he and other boys, including his brother Junior, would hip-hop dance to their favorite music genre, rap. On his way he encounters his grandmother’s village where she convinces the boys to stay the night, in the morning he is stunned to learn that Mattru Jong was attacked by the Royal United Front (RUF) and that the people who were in the village were now dead or refugees. After this, Ishmael
Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
355 Words | 2 PagesThe book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a memoir about himself involved in war as a child. War began happening in Ishmael’s hometown in Sierra Leone, which was Mogbwemo, so everyone broke apart and he lost his family, except for his brother. He had to start running away from the war to stay alive, so he went with some of his friends and his brother into different provinces of Sierra Leone. They went from village to village looking for food, shelter and safety. Ishmael was caught many times by the army and he thought he was stuck with them forever, but he escaped many different ways.
Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
486 Words | 2 PagesA Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is the painfully true biography of Ishmael, his elder brother Junior, their friends and their journey to out run a war that is occurring in their hometown, Sierra Leone. The majority of the story takes place in Sierra Leon in between the years of 1993 and 1998. Ishmael’s journey begins the January of 1993 when he is the age of twelve. Individuals have begun to revolt which takes everything a turn for the worse. The rebels have struck the country with fear and caused complete chaos by killing families and destroying what they once called home.
Fahrenheit 451 Chapter 1 Dialectical Journal
1290 Words | 6 PagesChapter 12 starts out very gruesome, which I feel is foreshadowing in a way. It shows us what this war was really like, through our own eyes. I feel that the “secure village”, is a false sanctuary. A place that refugees of the war can go to and try and have a normal life, but it gives them false hope. A hope that is soon destroyed.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
251 Words | 2 PagesHe then moves to Mattru Jong to live with his father. The war hits when he is on a trip with his friends and his brother to see his grandmother. He then has to run away from the war leaving his family behind him. ishmael continues running from the war for most of his childhood and eventually losses his brother and the rest of his family in the process.
Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
579 Words | 3 PagesA Long Way Gone is a memoir written with Ishmael Beah’s memories of the civil war that happened in his hometown, Sierra Leone. Beah’s determination for survival and use of descriptive imagery of the war gives us a chance to feel like we’re actually in the war with him. Ishmael Beah was only a twelve year old boy when the war came to his village. Because he lost his family in the war, Ishmael had to learn how to survive on his own along with some other boys. Together, they took care and watched out for each other in the wilderness while trying to find a safe place to hide from the rebels, the people attacking their country.
The Responsibility Of Ishmael Beah's Attacks In Sierra Leone
338 Words | 2 PagesAn autobiography, of which Ishmael Beah unwillingly becomes a child solider due to a civil war that has arisen in Sierra Leone. Before the attacks had happen, Ishmael and his elder brother Junior had gone from home to perform Rap in Mattru Jong with their friends. Not long after their arrival, news of the rebels had come to their attention having raided their home town and no sign of their families being unscarred from the warfare. Ishmael, and his group of friends sought out to travel to each village seeking out their family. However trouble comes across due to the majority of RUF rebel attacks were caused by children around their age, many villagers had no trust for these kids.
Essay On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
844 Words | 4 PagesA Long Way Gone Book Review A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a very powerful memoir that shows his experiences as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. His writings show how he went from a regular child living day to day to a violent, bloodthirsty soldier trying to survive. I enjoyed this book because Beah’s writing is honest and blunt, and he’s not afraid to describe the horrible violence and trauma he and his comrades endured as young soldiers. Despite the harsh reality of the book, Beah writes with faith and courage.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1062 Words | 5 PagesHe also tells stories about how rebels would “cut off the heads of some family members…force sons to have intercourse with their mothers…and hack new born babies in half”(108), which manipulates this 13 year boy to join the military and “escape” the horrors of the rebels. Another form of mental manipulation used by the military to trick Ishmael is by convincing him to use pure anger in order to kill his enemies. The lieutenant tells Ishmael to practice stabbing the banana trees, “visualize[ing] the banana tree as [his] enemy, the rebels who killed [his] parents and [his] friends” (112). Although the military leader did not know if the rebels had actually killed Ishmael’s parents and friends, he uses this tactic to tap into Ishmaels mind, using his most valued things to anger him. Ishmael says “I imagined capturing several rebels at once,
Loss Of Innocence In A Long Way Gone
1508 Words | 7 PagesTo Ishmael these people who killed his family are seen as toys, at this point in the story it’s hardly about revenge. Moreover, it’s about fulfillment, to him, saying that he kills them because they killed his family is a pathetic attempt to mask his true feelings, Ishmael is drugged and was addicted to both the sensation of killing and the drugs themselves. Another additional way the reader could Ishmael’s changes is when he talks about an experience where he tortured a group of people for a day straight who shot him and then shot them. Ishmael recounts, “Before I shot each man, I looked up and saw his eyes give up hope and steadied before I pulled the trigger. I found their somber eyes irritating” (159).
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
840 Words | 4 PagesThe rebels are individuals who are rebelling against the government, which they believe is “corrupt”. Both sides claim to be fighting for what is right for the civilians. Caught in the middle of this deadly war, Ishmael was forced to fight for the government. While acting as a soldier, he was obligated to eliminate everyone in sight.
The Theme Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1109 Words | 5 PagesAs they pass through the villages that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels have destroyed, they see the destruction and dead bodies left behind: “ The breeze brings the faint cries of those whose last breath are leaving their mangled bodies. I walk past them. Their arms and legs are missing; their intestines spill out through the bullet holes in their stomachs, brain matter comes out of their nose and ears” (18). When Beah and his friends encountered this horrific scene, they were stripped from the peace they have known. They were exposed to the reality and destruction that comes with a war, and instead of living their lives as children, they found themselves trying to survive on a day-to-day basis.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1661 Words | 7 PagesIn A Long Way Gone, “he writes one of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I was not sure when or where it was going to end. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again” (Beah, Ishmael 69). Beah's memoir sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism. As a victim of the violence, a young man who has lost his family and way of life and is in turn considered dangerous by most of the civilians he encounters, Beah suffers more than simiple physical pain.
A Long Way Gone Analysis
1110 Words | 5 PagesIshmael says, “I wasn’t sure whether he was unconscious or dead. I didn’t care” (Beah 135). Ishmael is no longer in the war, yet the violence and numbness to it continues. The hell from war made its way into a normal life for Ishmael. He will never be the same Ishmael from before the war.
A Long Way Gone Theme Essay
946 Words | 4 PagesThe road to safety is a bumpy one, they have multiple run-ins with people thinking they were on the side of the rebels or just hooligans running about trying to make trouble. After many close calls, Ishmael finally finds somewhere he and his friends are lead to
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