Summary Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
Ishmael Beah was born in the village of Mogbwemo in Sierra Leone in 1980. The Civil War in Sierra Leone displaced Ishmael and resulted in him becoming a child soldier for the Sierra Leonean Armed Forces. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier chronicles the physical and psychological horrors of war and Ishmael’s subsequent return to society.
While visiting a neighboring village with his brother and a group of friends, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) pillaged Mogbwemo. The attack separates the boys from their families. The group travels through the countryside, between villages, looking for food and shelter. They stay in the village of Kamator for a time until it too is assaulted by the rebels, separating Ishmael from his brother. Ishmael travels alone for a period until he encounters a group of boys also from Mogbwemo. After several weeks of traveling the boys locate the village where their families are, only to arrive as the village is being torched by the RUF. Following this they travel toward the coast until arriving in the government controlled safe zone in Yele.
Yele’s impending siege by the rebels, forces Ishmael’s and the other boy’s conscription into the government army. The child soldiers are fueled by their hatred toward the RUF for the deaths of their
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For Ishmael, rehabilitation was a long process where his hatred and rage slowly became replaced with the realization of his actions and the horrors he endured. After being rehabilitated Ishmael moved in with the only surviving family he had, his uncle. Ishmael’s unique experience and his success in rehabilitation was causation for him to be selected to represent Sierra Leone in the United Nations Economic and Social Council’s conference on children affected by war. During the conference in New York City Ishmael met Laura Simms, one of the facilitators for the
Book Review Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1006 Words | 5 PagesThe 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
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.
Of A Long Way Gone Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier By Ishmael Beah
469 Words | 2 PagesA Long Way Gone Memoirs of a boy soldier is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah. This novel is about Ishmael's first hand experience of the Civil war in sierra leone between Mar 23, 1991 to Jan 18, 2002 .I feel the book gave a genuine glimpse of war and how Ishmael stayed alive as a refugee and showed what he had to do in order to survive in this war. The memoir also showed the corruption of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) who with the support of the Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, attempted to overthrow the government. However, a messenger from the RUF said that they were on their side and would like to be welcomed.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1062 Words | 5 PagesIshmael is a child soldier who is addicted to drugs, and along with other child soldiers at the time of combat, relies on drugs to keep him numb during these inhumane acts. When Ishmael He begins he says that the drugs have made killing “easy as drinking water” (122). The drugs have made him fierce and “the idea of death didn’t cross [his] mind” (122). He also stopped forming memories, almost as if his brain did not process what he was actually doing. Even during Ishmaels suffering, as he woke from his dream and “begins shooting in the tent” (120) the corporal and lieutenant “gave [him] more white capsules” (120).
Attachment In Ishmael's Benin Home
704 Words | 3 PagesIshmael has accept the fact that the war has ruined his enjoyment of meeting new people. Because of him going into villages and being chased out because they believed he was a rebel, Or having to go through other villages because he knew nobody there and he knew what was coming to their village and he did not want to stay had ruined the experience for him until later on in his life. Ishmael's experiences force him to deny his emotional side in order to survive. His flight from RUF attacks on the various villages in Sierra Leone requires him to let go of attachments to family and friends. Although he holds out hope to see his family, he has no choice but to close off himself to the world.
A Long Way Gone Response Essay
654 Words | 3 PagesIshmael hoped his family was safe and not heartbroken over Junior and him. At the time, Ishmael was traveling with six other boys. All of the boys stayed quiet all afraid to speak about their families. After this, the boys were their own little family. They would travel village to village just trying to get away from the rebels.
Perseverance In The Lost Boys
714 Words | 3 PagesFirst, the text mentions that around 17,000 young Sudanese boys fled from Sudan after being separated from their families when a civil war began, and survived a total of a 1,000-mile journey. The Lost Boys traveled a long, challenging route to safety.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
235 Words | 1 PagesThe same applies to the children of Sierra Leone, where they were separated from their families—however, these children will never end up finding their families, they will never have a happy life again, and will never remember how it felt to be loved or cared for by someone. The 1991 Sierra Leonean civil war split children from their families and forced them to survive on their own—without any supervision. Many children were either captured by the rebels or were forced to join the military and fight the rebels. Nearly all “strong” children forced to endure many painful situations and commit immoral acts. All children who were not recruited were killed because they were too “weak”.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1261 Words | 6 PagesAnother event that was probably his final turn before deciding to become a violent child soldier. In chapter 11, Ishmael has just lost his family and blames Gasemu and tries to kill him, “walked behind Gasemu and locked his neck under my arm. I squeezed him as hard as I could” (Beah 96). this quote demonstrates how Ishmael is willing to kill now for revenge as the quote did not show any hesitation from Ishmael. As shown in the article Child soldiers battle traumas in Congo rehab, it reads, “the children, they go back to their villages and they tell other children carrying a gun is not the way” (Nima).
Long Way Gone Themes
675 Words | 3 PagesOnce Ishmael is in the rehabilitation center he opens up to Ester. “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). Family was important to Ishmael and the war tore it apart from
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1661 Words | 7 PagesThe anguish of losing his family and friends is compounded by the uncertainty each day brings. Although they attempt to find a safe haven, the boys know from bitter experience that no such place seems to exist in Sierra Leone. Each new village brings either hopelessness in the form of desolation and isolation or hostility on the part of the frightened inhabitants. Beah feels that there is no place for him to call "home" any longer, and fears that such a place may never exist in his future. He must start "over and over again" with each new day, keep moving so as to avoid both the rebels and their terrified victims.
Advantages Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1038 Words | 5 PagesThey see nothing wrong with what they do. In 2007, Ishmael Beah published a memoir called “A Long Way Gone” about his time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. When he was twelve, the RUF (rebels) attacked his home village of Mogbwemo while he was in Mattru Jong with his older brother and their friends. The RUF then began to attack neighboring villages, sending Ishmael and his brother running.
Comparison Of The Holocaust And Armenian Genocide
703 Words | 3 PagesIn the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael becomes a child soldier at the age of 12 for the governmental team the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, in order to fight the Revolutionary United Front. Ishmael goes from being a regular kid who liked to spend time with his friends
Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1404 Words | 6 PagesIshmael who was once a peaceful, innocent little boy, was transformed into a man killing machine like most children. The civil war in Sierra Leone had malformed many people’s lives, personality, and faith, bringing them to extreme measures. Families were torn apart by the war, everything had changed. Homes that used to once carry families and joyful memories were no longer there, everything was demolished. Like Ishmael many children were manipulated to join the war to avenge the deaths of their families, making the war more chaotic that it should have been.
Reflection On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
498 Words | 2 PagesThe 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.
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