Through transitions from dark, disconnecting thoughts to hopeful, ambitious thoughts, characters from A Long Way Gone, The Joy Luck Club, and The Alchemist, all show perseverance through trying times by looking deeper within themselves and into their inner power, which reveals how much strength each survivor hides underneath. Amid journeys and hardships, Ishmael and An-Mei find themselves lost or disconnected from their families, which can be heavy and unmanageable to them. After Ishmael loses his family, he instantly goes into a dark place. Ishmael’s anger is underlying pain, and he took it out on Gasemu before he even had time to think: “If we hadn’t stopped to rest on the hill, if we hadn’t run into Gasemu, I would have seen my family, …show more content…
After experiencing the beginning of war, Ishmael remembers something that his father used to say to him, that would help him have hope in his current situation. Ishmael remembers hearing that if he is “ ‘alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing food left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive ” (Beah 54). Beah uses positive words such as “hope” and “drove” to convey the realization that he has just made. Using the words that his father had once given him, he discovers the inner strength that he needs to get him through war. During war, it is hard to keep thoughts straight and away from negativity, and to obtain the willingness to keep going. To compare, Rose finds her voice in her marriage. Ted is trying to get her to sign the divorce papers, but she does not agree with his decisions. So, she goes against him and finally stands up to him using her inner power: “and the answer, the one that was important above everything else, ran through my body and fell from my lips: ‘you can’t just pull me out of your life and throw me away’” (Tan 196). Rose uses “ran” and “fell” to describe the sudden rush of power that went through her. Suddenly finding her underlying authority, she finally tells Ted her feelings. She had never spoken up for herself, and for most of her marriage, she has been a “ghost. In comparison to Ishmael, Santiago also finds a drive to continue. When faced with the challenge of becoming wind, Santiago believes in himself. He “reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw
Later on in the book Ishmael is forced into the military; he sees and does thing a child should never experience in their entire life. The ending of the book is both
At only thirteen, he was brought to the government army, and forced to fight the attacking rebels. After he managed to survive, Beah was taken by UNICEF and learned to live again. In A Long Way Gone, he manages to retell those days in a shocking and mesmerizing way. Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone, wanted to write this book to give readers an inside perspective on this war.
Many times, others view unknown situations or topics as “cool”. Many times, they fail to realize the hardships others face. In “A Long Way Gone”, Beah’s friends had thought his experiences were cool but they would not feel the same way if they had read the memoir and understood the emotions and situations he had faced. Ishmael Beah’s memoir goes on to explain all the reasons why his experiences were not nearly cool.
For Mariatu and Ishmael, the war left them both immobile: one physically while the other mentally. Mariatu’s life before the war was by no means perfect. Family issues and naiveness impacted Mariatu’s pre-war world. When the rumors of an
Ishmael struggles constantly encounters gore and blood as his journey progress. From one town to another he sees government soldier to rebel soldier using the same method to kill. Ishmael has an internal battle to keep moving forward as he sees family being ripped away from
Children are like sponges, they soak up everything they see or hear. If children see nothing but war and violence it becomes a part of them. Consequently, Babes in Arms by William Boyd discusses about Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, and his life as a child warrior. Since Beah was only 12 when the Sierra Leone War had entered his life his mind was very influenced by bloodshed and brutality.
Many people can respond to adversity in a similar way to overcome the obstacles. For example, how people can adapt to their environment, and learn the positivity from family and friends can help them surpass the adversity. In There are No Children Here, Alex Kotlowitz has showed the life of Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers living through the violent projects of "Henry Honer Projects" and how the boys dealt with all the crime activities that occur there. In Along Way Gone, Ishmael describe the tragedies he had went through in the Sierra Leone War, and explained different ways how he overcomes the different obstacles that he had to deal with. For example, war like environment, loss of his friends and family, and rehabilitation center.
There are many differences and similarities between the film The Inevitable Defeat of Pete and the memoir A Long Way Gone. The first and most obvious is that the movie is fiction and the memoir is not. The memoir focuses on Ishmael Beah’s personal experience and the movie is a fictional story someone came up with. The memoir has factual events regarding Ishmael’s life while the film is a fictional story that provides some insight and awareness into that specific environment. The film shows absolute, economic and educational poverty.
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah’s innocence is taken away when is forced into becoming a child soldier. In The Bite of the Mango, innocence is involuntarily taken from Mariatu Kamara through the amputation of her hands and the incidence of rape. Loss of innocence is a pivotal and life changing necessity because of the transformation encountered and the independence gained. Transformations, both mental and physical, can alter the innocence of a being. Beah experiences a mental transformation through being a child soldier.
Ishmael does a magnificent job in telling his story, he envelops the reader and does not let go until the very end. But some will not want to be let
All of this is conveyed by the passages,”A long way Gone,” and, “Babes in arms.” The war had disastrous effects on Ishmael. Can you imagine returning home to find your family and house in a burning mess. This is what happened to ishmael.
When the terrors of war abruptly entered Ishmael’s life, Ishmael was only a young boy, leaving him with little wisdom and vulnerable to influence. Left alongside his brother, Junior Beah, and friends, Ishmael is forced to become his own man. This amount of pressure from such harsh decision making wore away the happy young boy he once was. Ishmael eventually became addicted to drugs, something that only made his scars more visible and his functionality
Hiba Shaqra A Long Way Gone: Typed Reading Log Key Quote Insightful Comment Discussion Question “Perhaps it was necessary he This quote depicts Ishmael’s first Does Ishmael end up cling to false hopes, since they war experience. A child, clearly using this tactic, this had kept him running away dead, had lain in front of him.
I have had the privilege to read and fall deeply in love with multiple books. However, there is one book that has changed me body and soul and ignited a fire inside me to pursue my life’s passion: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. If I was in charge, which is a wonderful idea, of the common reading program at the University of Oregon everyone would be required to read Ishmael. This book can field a mass of student that will change the world. Ishmael delves into controversial environmental topics by utilizing a wise, talking gorilla, Ishmael that has a series of sessions with a man.
Ishmael Response/Reflection One of many morals taught by Daniel Quinn is that we shouldn’t base the way we live our lives on religions. In the book, Ishmael, the topic on religion initiated a handful of controversial remarks. Quinn believes our society depends our lifestyles on religious beliefs because they guide us to the ‘right’ approach to “ought” to live. Quinn points his finger at prophets, claiming they promote irrational laws to live a certain way. He feels humans use creed as a reason/excuse to do what satisfies them with the world and accuses the gods when natural disasters occur.