Ishmael Beah had grown up in Mogbwemo, Sierra Leone, a tight knit community where he was always surrounded by people who cared about him. Sierra Leone was always pleasant place to live until the chaos of the Civil War attacked the village. “The first time that [Ishmael] was touched by the war [he] was twelve… [He] left home with Junior, [his] older brother, and [their] friend Talloi… to go to the town of Mattru Jong to participate in [their] friends’ talent show” (Beah, 6). The war hit Mogbwemo very unexpectedly, “Since [Ishmael and his friends] intended to return the next day, [they] didn’t say goodbye or tell anyone where [they] were going. [They] didn’t know that [they] were leaving home, never to return” (Beah, 7). Once they reached Mattru
The impact of war can have very harmful effects on people, especially children. In “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah, he explains the war of Sierra Leone from his point of view. The tragedy of losing his family, becoming a boy soldier, and the effects of war is said throughout the book, making it an interesting story to read. But, while Ishmael explains what he went through, it is hidden that other people were affected by the actions he took. Although Ishmael did play a victimizer, he was also a victim at the same time.
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
War is destructive and tears apart the most important parts of life. Ishmael Beah was a boy in Sierra Leone when a civil war was taking place Ishmael wrote a book about his experiences titled A Long Way Gone. The book is about how Ishmael went from a boy to a soldier. Ishmael lived happily in a village when it was attacked by the rebels RUF he fled from village to village. Ishmael eventually ended up by the Army and joined them to fight the rebels.
“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is a moving war story about the author, Ishmael Beah, and his life growing up in the african country. Sierra Leone is the setting during the civil war which spanned from March of 1991 to January of 2002. Ishmael provides a stance against child soldiers, and has stuck with that view ever since he was rehabilitated. This book presents strong first hand encounters and vivid war stories. This helps prove the argument that child soldiering is a cruel act, and by using rehabilitation, victims would be able to return to regular life.
An 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.
Throughout the book, A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, violence is a predominant theme. Ishmael is a witness to violence at the early age of twelve when the civil war reaches his village in Sierra Leone. The death of his family, the loss of his childhood/ innocence and his transformation into a killer were all direct results of the violence due to the war. The rebel forces killed Ishmael’s mother, father, brother and grandparents during the war.
“We had left home with only these cassettes and the clothes that we wore. ”(Beah). During this time in the book, the boys had tried to go back home only to realize it was too dangerous. On their way, They passed through Beah’s grandma’s village which had been torn apart by the rebels.
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.
“The saddest sight these days is the imagine of hundreds of children kidnapped and lured into being child soldiers from the age of eight”(Roger Moore).”A Long Way Gone”was written by Ishmael Beah and published in 2007. As horrible and terrifying the experience was for Ishmael Beah starting in Sierra Leone from a young age,he still had enough courage to publish his own memoir. As a kid Ishmael was a happy child that loved music and dance. While performing rap music with his friends away from home his village got attacked by the rebels. Without knowing if his family is alive or not he has to survive on his own going from village to village.
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.
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
In Ishmael Beah's enthralling memoir "A Long Way Gone," the intricacies and conflicting viewpoints of war and terrorism, along with their profound impacts on Sierra Leone, are effectively conveyed through various literary devices, including vivid imagery, syntax, and diction. Ishmael's arrival at the village of Kamator after receiving news of his aunt's well-being from villagers is a particularly striking example of his use of sensory imagery. The evocative descriptions of "dew coming down every morning" and "the odor of soaked soil" encapsulate his longing to relish the captivating landscape and the transient moments of hopefulness and normalcy amidst the chaos of warfare (Beah 40). Nevertheless, Ishmael's use of short, fragmented sentences
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. The most commonly seen conflict in ‘A Long Way Gone’ is person vs society.
Later, UNICEF came and decided to take Ishmael out of the war and put him in a rehabilitation center. In this part of the novel, the reader can see how his desire for killing has controlled him completely. By fighting and killing rebel members in the rehabilitation center and beating up the guards to force them into doing what the children wants to do, the reader can see that the war has changed their ways of life and thoughts. The army was able to change Ishmael 's desires and from that, he became a deadly
The way Beah explained what happened to him, he did it in a sad way. My response to the writer is that I feel sorry for him. I cannot relate to him in any way since I have never been exposed to war and even been a soldier fighting in it. He was strong through the hardest part of his life; the actual war itself, rehabilitation, and ultimately escaping Freetown, Sierra Leone to eventually fly over to New York and start a new life. Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, replays a part of Beah’s life that will always be very vivid to him.