The Significance Of My Creative Title A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

Ishmael is at the army’s current base and is reflecting on his feelings about the enemy. He angrily thinks how, “Whenever I looked at rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many as I could. ”(Beah 122) The pain and sadness Ishmael first felt after losing his family has morphed into uncontrollable anger after becoming a soldier.

Ishmael was put into rehabilitation and lived with his Uncle until they were attacked again. Ishmael went from victim of war running away in fear of being killed to a soldier who raided villages. Ishmael is a victim of war running away soldiers in an attempt to survive. After Ishmael was chased

But unfortunately, Ishmael 's perspective changes and progresses throughout the story for the worse, because of many traumatizing moments he had experienced, as well as the grief and loss he encountered to

8) He then becomes stranded due to the fact that rebels came and he could not make it back to his village for his family. “Every morning in Mattru Jong we would go down to the wharf for news from home.” (Beah, pg. 15) Ishmael and Junior’s bond deepens despite the tragedy of not being able to see their family. They try to protect each other to the best of their ability.

Ishmael being born as a villager, the most important thing for him was to know his wild life and greenery, Ishmaels Grandparents were brought up a lot for how they taught him of plants and medicine. The period where Ishmael became lost in the forest and depressing thoughts clouded his mind, really goes to show how lonely times were for him and how hard it was to deal with all of the family lost and war. Ishmael's only way of staying alive and safe from the gangs that went from town to town killing, burning, raping and destroying villagers along with their homes, was running

According to the novel “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael could not find any food that was substantial to eat and each day he was more and more hungry which caused his vision to blur (Beah, 2008). To try and obtain resources Ishamel and his friends decided to run back into their old town where war had hit to obtain money to buy food. Beah had to learn the survival techniques which means eat what available and eat to survive. Conflict theory also could be used to portray Ishmael due to him encountering war it caused him to have

These three core topics stay the same yet, as Ishmael’s response changes we see how deeply the war is affecting him. As we make our final round back to the beginning, to see the young boy Ishmael was once again. Right before the war finally hits Beah’s village we see some refugees come into the village, trying the wreckage of the war. This is where Ishmael’s first opinion on war formulates, or at least shown. “At times I thought

He no longer feels as if he has control of his future. Right now he is compelled to do anything possible to survive. Like most children Ishmael is afraid to run away, he decides to join the army. When Ishmael first started off in the war as a solider he felt traumatized, disgusted, and horrified by his experiences. On page 100 Ishmael encounters several dead bodies, it was such a traumatizing experience for him; he felt like he was going to throw up.

He starts to think smarter and travel more cautiously. In addition to this, Ishmael also shows he had acquired intelligence when the secret market was under attack, “I was getting furious, but… I knew I couldn’t afford to lose my temper. The result would be death, since I was now a civilian; I knew that” (205). Prior to living in the rehab center, if Ishmael had been put in the same situation, he most certainly would have snapped and joined the massacre, but while staying with his civilized families, he learned to think about the outcome of his actions beforehand, so he holds his temper and hides

Ishmael’s life in Sierra Leone was a series of victimization by rebel forces. He was constantly fleeing for his safety and tormented with the loss of dear family and friends. When it came to a point where Ishmael had to decide between killing or dying, the burden of taking a life was partially subdued by the fact that he was taking revenge against the very people that slaughtered his family, “Suddenly, as if someone was shooting them inside my brain, all the massacres I had seen since the day I was touched by war began to flash in my head…I angrily pointed my gun into the swamp and killed more people. (Beah 119). Violence also became an escape, Ishmael tells about the constant terror of running through forests trying to avoid getting shot by the pursuing rebels.

Ishmael says, “I wasn’t sure whether he was unconscious or dead. I didn’t care” (Beah 135). Ishmael is no longer in the war, yet the violence and numbness to it continues. The hell from war made its way into a normal life for Ishmael. He will never be the same Ishmael from before the war.

Two years of Ishmael’s life consisted of war. Ishmael Beah, unfortunately, experienced both sides of it: being a victim and a victimizer. During the civil war, Ishmael was the sufferer of numerous things. One day Ishmael and his friends wandered into a village when all of a sudden villagers, with weapons in their hands, jumped out of nowhere.

Ishmael has become a living being with no humanity left inside him, which is very different from the concerned, innocent child that he once

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

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