A Long Way Gone Character Analysis

Ishmael’s description of his three years as a soldier proves that every human is capable of committing horrible acts. Anyone who does so will eventually change the basis of their character and

In a long way gone written by Ishmael Beah he’s a child soldier and he faces many challenges along the way. Ishmael is dealing with with lots of conflicts. He struggles to remain human while he’s seeing all of these inhumane things. Ishmael is caught up in the war and he’s surviving by moving from village to village. Ishmael is captured by the soldiers, and is taken to a village where everything is supposed to be safe. A fair age to become a soldier is 21 because you’re old enough to make life decisions like wanting to kill, do drugs, and you can deal with traumatization.

In the book A Long Way Gone a young innocent boy named Ishmael Beah became a soldier at 13 years old. He encounters lots of situations where he has to choose whether he wants to survive or kill to stay alive. During the story, Ishmael was converted from a young boy into a careless, numb soldier. Ishmael was also separated from his family and all throughout his journey he hoped that he would find his family again. Ishmael’s hope to find his family is what kept him going on his journey. Later in the story, Ishmael found out where his family had supposedly been seen last and right when he got to the village he saw it being burned down and shot up by Rebels and Ishmael realized his family was dead (Beah 117). Later in the story, the army soldiers told Ishmael and others that

Forest fires engulf tall rows of trees, turning green leaves and the homes of animals into ashes. Although fires leave a destructive trail of darkened groves, they create a chance for new life to develop. Nutrients find their way through the ashes into new soil, a new life begins to flourish, and old wreckages create new homes. Ishmael Beah, the author of ‘A Long Way Gone’, tells his readers his story that one man could never forget; new opportunities and chances for a better life often flourish in the ashes created from past challenges. The book ‘a long way gone’ is based on true events experienced by the author. At the age of 13 till the age of 16 the author, Ishmael Beah, pulls himself through many terrible conflicts in Sierra Leone. The author uses conflict to show his readers the realism of his story. By using conflict in many different ways, it allows readers to gain an understanding of how Ishmael struggles changed his life for worse and for better. By using person vs person, person vs society, person vs self, and person vs nature conflict the author is opening doors allowing readers to get a full understanding of Ishmael 's challenges of a life in war.

In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Beah is an adolescent whose innocence is stripped away at the hands of war. At the age of 13, Beah is forced to fight in the war in order to survive, or give up his battle and die. As a result, Beah ultimately decides to join the war. The harsh violence that Beah is exposed to strips him of his innocence and leaves him helpless and alone with his mind keeping him awake at night trying to unsee the cruelness he has been exposed to. Beah utilizes flashbacks, symbolism, and nature motifs in order to address the loss of his innocence throughout the novel.

Imagine being involved in a bloody massacre and watching your community dissipate into the dusk. Picture dodging the piercing bullets as they whisk past innocent ears. Envision your home turning into a battle ground, breaking up into military bases—flipping the world upside down. (nice capture tactic) This was peoples’ lives for many years, beginning in the 1960’s, during the Civil War in Sierra Leone. (need a transition---how does Beah relate to civil war aforementioned—I think I follow and understand but you did not explicitly state, which is always necessary when essay writing) A Long Way Gone is a memoir written and lived by Ishmael Beah. He writes with an intense tone and strong demeanor with his diction,

Ishmael was away from his family when the rebels (one side of the war) started to attack his home. Ishmael then had traveled city to city with groups of boys to avoid the rebels, and search for his family. The only thing that was getting Ishmael through the war was that he would see his family again. He couldn’t handle not knowing what had happened to his family so, “[he] decided to just ignore every thought that came to [his] head, because it brought too much sadness…[he] spent most of [his] time fighting [himself] mentally in order to avoid thinking about what [he] had seen or wondering where [his] life was going, where [his] family and friends were. Keeps being saved” (Beah 52). Ishmael had to distance himself from thoughts that his family was not alive because that was too unbearable to think about. One day, a woman told Ishmael that she had seen his family in the town next to them. Ishmael had built up hope of finally seeing his family only to arrive in the town to see rebels burning down every house. The situation was too horrible for Ishmael, he “screamed at the top of [his] lungs and began to cry as loudly as [he] could, punching and kicking with all [his] might into the weak walls that continued to burn. [He] had lost [his] sense of touch. [His] hands and feet punched and kicked the burning walls, [he] couldn’t feel a thing” (Beah 95). In this moment, Ishmael lost almost any hope he had left of getting out of the war. Ishmael was mentally too far gone to have hope, and all he has left is revenge for his family. Without his family when Ishmael finally arrived in Yele where the government was, he was willing to join the army in revenge for his family. But, even with no hope Ishmael still had ties to his past life through his rap music. Until Ishmael joined the army, “as [he] was putting on [his] new army short, a soldier took [his] old pants and threw them into a blazing

Ishmael went through a lot of terrible episodes once he was rescued by UNICEF. The first issue he had was that he still had the urges to hurt people. He would try and hurt people at the organization even if they didn’t do anything to him. Of course, that wasn’t his fault because it was what he was used to and all that he knew. He also went through withdrawals from the drugs that he was used to taking everyday. He wasn’t aloud to have any drugs which would make him short-tempered and have random

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.

before our wishes could meet the mood of the story. He states them. Under these stars and sky that the sky is crying and the I used to hear stories, but now it moon is hiding. This is similar to seemed as if it was the sky that him, as the sky crying symbolizes was telling us a story as its stars his sadness toward the war. The fell, violently colliding with each moon hiding symbolizes how other. The moon hid behind clouds he himself wants to escape the to avoid seeing what was war and the tragedy within. happening (Page

In 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

The human condition is full of paradoxes and double meanings. We can commit the most shocking and terrible acts, but we can complete the most virtuous and honorable feats. Ishmael Beah describes the appalling and violent behavior he and other children exhibited toward the human life during his time in the Sierra Leonean civil war in his memoir, A Long Way Gone. Beah also details the forgiveness and kindness of complete strangers that helped him become the man that fate meant him to be. Homo sapiens are complex creatures brimming with irony and surprises. Paradoxes are not only shown in A Long Way Gone, but also illustrated in other pieces of literature such as short stories, essays, and articles.

The book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is an autobiography about a boy named Ishmael who went through so much at a young age. This book should be read because it’s a story you could relate to and give you a perspective of how society is today than it was before and how it has affected people across the world. On the (front cover of the book) Carolyn See from the Washington Post says “Everyone in the world should read this book…We should read It to learn about the world and about what it means to be human.” She’s right, reading this book will provide you with facts you never known and could change the way you see things today.

When the cassette tapes were “killed” in a fire by soldiers they were not the only thing lost. This turn of events represents the loss of childhood and innocence that the cassettes once represented. It is this moment that Ishmael turns from a childish boy to a blood thirsty soldier of war. Later on even saying “My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed.”(Beah 116) With the last reminder of his home town and youth gone, part of Ishmael is gone too and even in the later future he is never the same. Ishmael later reviles “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), after losing the only piece of his childhood, he has lost it

The drama, Good and Gone written and performed by the students of EP3C details the the experience of the lead character, Morrison’s, high school years. The play goes through the several landmark moments in his life as young adult and also gives insight into the lives of his friends as well. Throughout the script, one is able to see the relationships between such characters unfold and often the sense of conflict that it brings. The play circles heavily around the influence of art, specifically music, and its role in the lives of the characters. This not only creates strong central themes, but also creates strong internal conflicts, along with external conflicts among characters in which they regard themselves to have the most accurate and socially