Symbolism In A Long Way Gone
A Long Way Gone. This heartbreaking true story of young Ishmael Beah’s life during the Sierra Leone civil war. When he was twelve years old, Beah's village is attacked while he is away performing in a rap group with friends. Among the confusion, violence, and uncertainty of the war, Ishmael, his brother, and four friends rush from village to village in search of food and shelter, trying their hardest to avoid the rebel soldiers. Their day-to-day life is fall of struggle and grief, wondering if they will ever live to see another day The boys find themselves committing acts they would never have believed themselves capable of, such as stealing food from children. This story embodies a story of survival and the willingness to survive even …show more content…
Deviance is departing from usual or accepted standards, this is relevant in this book because the main character Ishmael is deviating from his own perspective of himself. In the beginning he was a young carefree kid but throughout the civil war, he discovered a side of him that he never knew was their. By deviating from his own perspective of himself, he was able to realize how truly strong he was. There are three concepts of deviance, symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and the conflict theory. Social interacts focuses on symbolism and communication within a community and this is relevant in this story through Ishmael’s journey though rehabilitation. He was able to use communication his problems and determine a way to overcome any situation by sharing his story with others. Functionalism explains social institutions as a collective means to meet individual as well as societal needs. This is also evident in the rehabilitation camps. The UNICEF group was trying to take children that were apart of a violent group and attempt to bring back out the child in them. The last is conflict theory, this is a theory claiming that society is in a state of conflict due to competition for limited resources. The limited resource in this case is the race for power within Sierra Leone. The rebel soldiers were fighting for total control over the government and the military groups were doing the same. These three categories include the story of a society that was falling apart and desperately trying to regain its strength. Societies may only function when all groups learn how to coexist peacefully and in a productive manor and by unleashing violence on innocent civilians is no way to gain
Symbolism In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael
574 Words | 3 PagesSymbolism is used to help you not only understand the characters but also helps develop a coherent theme. In the long way gone the symbol used to help explain Ishmael’s struggles comes straight from his own pocket in the form of a beat-up cassette. It follows him along on the journey and with its demise you also see the tragic end of the childhood it has represented. When the fighting and violence started to occur brought by rebels and soldiers Beah and his friends still had the cassettes to enjoy and dance around with allowing them to still have an essence of childhood.
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.
A Long Way Gone: A 12 Year-Old Boy Soldier
322 Words | 2 PagesA Long Way Gone is about a 12 year old boy soldier who struggles to overcome the Sierra Leone Civil War and get his normal life back after he enlists into the army because his village was starting to get attacked by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and that was the only way someone could survive. Due to being a child soldier, he was exposed to many bad situations for kids his age. One of those situations were drugs. When he was age 16, a group of men by the organization of UNICEF rescued some boys, whom one of them was Ishmael. Ishmael and the rest were taken to a rehabilitation center where they ended up causing a lot of trouble to the staff.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
995 Words | 4 PagesDid you know that there are 5,525,00 people that live in Sierra Leone? Ishmael Beah’s tragic transformation into an RUF child soldier, as well as his rehabilitation afterward, proves that all human beings can be given a second chance at life. Ishmael encountered many tragic things including starvation, forced to do things that were not right, and also getting beaten. He learned from what he has done moved on from it but will never forget the tragic things he has seen and done. A long Way Gone is a true story of Ishmael Beah, who becomes an unwilling boy soldier during a civil war in Sierra Leone.
A Long Way Gone Analysis
1110 Words | 5 PagesIshmael is at the rehabilitation center with other boys who were in the war. He discovers some of the boys are fighting for the rebels side, and with partisan views, a huge fight starts. The boys are throwing punches and stabbing each other. Ishmael began kicking a boy that went after him, and then Alhaji stabs him in the back. They both “...continued kicking the boy until he stopped moving”.
A Long Way Gone Essay
778 Words | 4 PagesA Long Way Gone is nonfiction story and true story of a boy named Ishmael Beah who is also the author himself. It is about how he becomes a boy soldier during a civil war in Sierra Leone. When he was 12 years old, his village was attacked while he is away performing in a rap group with friends; which at the time he and his friends thought was cool because it came from America. With the confusion, violence, and uncertainty of the war, Ishmael, his brother, and his friends wander to all different villages to find food and shelter. They soon begin to struggle to survive, and the boys find themselves committing acts they would never thought of doing, such as stealing food from children.
A Long Way Gone Literary Analysis Essay
672 Words | 3 PagesThe 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.
A Long Way Gone Theme Essay
946 Words | 4 PagesThe 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.
Revenge In Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone
712 Words | 3 PagesHalf way through A Long Way Gone Ishmael is sent to a rehabilitation center where he was given food, shelter and care and a safe place to sleep. But even though Ishmael had left the war; the war didn’t leave him. Revenge is never the answer relates to this because, learning how to forgive himself was a war of its own. Ishmael’s desperate quest for revenge caused him to commit many horrible actions. Ishmael’s childhood will forever be haunted by memories of the war, memories he can’t run from.
Figurative Language In A Long Way Gone
841 Words | 4 PagesIshmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone is appropriate for the Sterling High School English IV curriculum because the conflicts in Sierra Leone are still relevant in today’s society, and the figurative language and symbolism reveal the human resilience to survive. These are important ideas to an English IV student because learning from the past can assure we will not repeat these mistakes in the future, and learning about someone who went through very difficult circumstances and still prevailed helps prepare us for the harsh real world. Most importantly, the conflicts in Sierra Leone are still universal problems in today’s society. One night while Beah lays in bed and reflects on the days meeting with Esther, he begins to have flash backs of the first time he slit
A Long Way Gone Quotes Analysis
625 Words | 3 PagesHiba 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.
Biological Factors In Lord Of The Flies Essay
639 Words | 3 PagesTo make matters worse, the boys had a whole new lifestyle and concerns that they must cope with, added on top of their overwhelming emotions. For instance, the boys suffered from lack of nutritious food, unsecure shelter, lack of security, and adult supervision. According to Ralph, many of the boys’ are frightened because of the situation there’re in, which is causing them to have constant nightmares (Golding 52). Clearly, trying to cope with these lifestyle changes and concerns can
A Long Way Gone Conflict Analysis
1572 Words | 7 PagesAt 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.
A Long Way Gone Character Analysis
1035 Words | 5 PagesLater, 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
Reflection On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
498 Words | 2 Pages(Conclusion) Ishmael Beah narrated his personal experience from an honest point of view. By doing so, he enabled the reader to understand everything he chose to explain head on, with no barriers. The reader was able to know what Beah went through, in his own words. “I began to cry quietly and all of a sudden felt dizzy,” (Beah 34). The readers were able to understand how he felt in certain situations.
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