We can all agree that war is dreadful. The impact to citizens and soldiers during times of war is significant and widespread. The fictional works: The Shawl, The Red Convertible and The Things They Carried, allow insight into the impact that war has on individuals. Although these stories are works of fiction, they all resonate real struggle and unbearable circumstances. Throughout these stories, the characters are continually impacted by their surrounding circumstances.
If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (54). The words of Ishmael 's father help galvanize Beah to continue on his journey although it is harsh and unbearable. Beah is struggling with depression and isolation, but the words of his father give him a sense of hope and light at the end of the tunnel that he will survive. The war was harsh, and the cruel and unjust treatment of the soldiers causes Ishmael Beah to live his childhood in fear and discomfort. He exclaims that “we were always either at the front lines, watching a war movie, or doing drugs.
At the age of fifteen, most of the children are forced to join in military including guerilla or rebel militaries are recruited by force into becoming soldiers Ismael Beah is one of them. Most of the children are willingly to volunteer in to the service of these groups. These children
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.
Violence consists of savagery, sadism, and power. Victims of violence are usually not liberated from the effect it has on them. In ‘A Long Way Gone’ by Ishmael Beah, he elaborates on his personal effects of violence in which he endures and taken part in. Throughout the book, he suffers the consequences of being part of the Sierra Leone Civil War. Ishmael experiences war flashbacks, nightmares, lost of innocence and a normal life in the result of violence.
Desire is the need for an object, a feeling or a person. One can have a desire for something that is essential for survival, such as water or food, but desire could be used to harm others or oneself. Through A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael’s perspective of desire was altered dramatically. These desires were changed from his surroundings or events that were taking place. In the book, Ishmael was easily manipulated by his desires. As the story progresses, the reader sees that desires become a more important role in Ishmael’s life and it made him from being an innocent child into a bloodthirsty soldier only looking for something to slaughter. From these transitioning desires Ishmael becomes less and less stable, making him easily
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.He later is forced and brainwashed to become a soldier and under the influence of drugs he became a killing
I have recently read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a well written story about his transformation from a young boy to a child soldier. He was taken when he was just a little boy, still enjoying his childhood and forced to fight and murder people. This isn’t the only transformation that I have seen when reading this amazing story. I see his transformation from a child to a soldier and a soldier to a civilized adult, something he struggles with a lot. In this essay, I will be telling you about the transformations I seen while I was reading this novel.
Some people call them instincts, but others call them natural tendencies. When people are under pressure, what drives them to make the decisions they make? The novels Night by Elie Wiesel, and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah help demonstrate why people choose to do certain things. Hope for better circumstances and fear of what could possibly happen is what forces people to make the decisions they make.
The quote shows the process of how Beah loses his innocence because of war, because it describes how the white sheet, the symbol of innocence, gets dirty from the blood of the dead body. Also when Ishmael sees his face in the body it shows his desperation from the war and his suffering. To conclude, the author believes that a kid should not suffer and lose their purity during war. This is seen through symbols in the memoir a Long Way Gone like the Ak-47, the baby and the white sheet.
“A Long Way Gone” Final Essay “Somebody being shot in front of you, or you yourself shooting somebody became just like drinking a glass of water.” (Ishmael Beah). “A Long Way Gone” was written by Ishmael Beah and published in 2007. It is a written masterpiece that captivates its readers by telling us his story, a former child soldier. In this he narrates the pain, the suffering and the fear that he endured for three years, literally fighting for his life against the rebels that caused all the chaos and the mayhem.
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.
This dehumanization allows him to overcome his feelings of guilt and easily justify his wrongdoings. As a result of the “fear” and “madness” that he feels, he has changed mentally due to being involved in the war for such an extended period of time. Moreover, being under great pressure when fighting for one’s life can cause a
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.