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Theme Of Innocence In A Long Way Gone

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Innocence is something that all people are born with. How and where we are raised directly connects to how long we will keep that innocence. In a small town in Sierra Leone a 10 year old boy lives a life that is similar to most children throughout the world. Beah listens to music, plays with his friends, and enjoy to cause trouble. As result of the war he is forced to wonder from village to village in search of food, water, and hopefully his family. This happens until he ends up on an army bace of the Serra Leone National Army. Beah, subsequently becomes a child soldier and starts his experience fighting a war at only thirteen years old. Ishmael Beah, experiences the loss of innocence throughout his memoir, A Long Way Gone which leads him to a troubling and traumatic childhood. Beah experiences loss of innocence through death at a very young age. Beah, at this point in the story, is a twelve year old boy who has never really seen violence first hand. This is until he gets word that the rebels have attacked his home town while he had been away with his rap group. He suddenly drops everything and goes …show more content…

He sees a man cry for the first time in his life. This event is the first major loss of innocence in Beah’s life. Beah is then forced to watch his friend die only a few months later. As result of this event Beah experiences a monumental loss of innocence. Finally Beah is forced to experience violence in a very monumental way. Beah becomes a child soldier which results in my opinion the biggest loss of innocence in his life. He is forced to kill without fully understanding what he has done. Beah also must do this with the use of drugs which results in him not being able to tell the difference between right and wrong. Beah’s experiences should stand as a lesson to all in showing the importance of innocence and family as a

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Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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When Beah first became a soldier, he had already faced immense suffering. He had seen people from both the army and the rebels destroy families and towns. He had lost his brother and friends along his journey. However, he lost the most important thing when he himself became that monster. He had paused his humanity.

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Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

731 Words | 3 Pages

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone, summarizes his experiences as a child soldier. He supports this by using descriptive word choice, which creates this mostly dark tone throughout the book. His purpose was to assert that being involved with the war as a child was difficult, and that children can lose their innocence from the war, in order to get the readers to see the war from a child’s point of view. He establishes a that dark tone with his readers of the book, with people of all ages.

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The Role Of Music In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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In Ishmael Beah’s personal memoir, A Long Way Gone, music courses through the story quite often. Music is first seen in Ishmael’s peaceful childhood. He and his friends enjoy singing and dancing along to music, in particular, Rap Music. As the story progresses, and the war becomes more prevalent in the young boys lives, rap continues to play a substantial role in their lives, just in a different way. At the end of Ishmael’s life story, there is yet another role that music plays.

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Character Analysis: Indian Horse By Richard Wagamese

937 Words | 4 Pages

Growing Up Young Loss of innocence is when one is unaware of evil surrounding them especially in children of a young age. Saul remembers his traumatic past experiences and feels better when he talks it through with someone. In the novel, Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese, Saul is stripped of his innocence, which in turn makes him more violent and causes him to turn to alcohol to cope with and escape from his troubles. Loss of innocence at a young age can forcibly take away one’s dreams, ultimately leading to a life of negativity. Hockey was the only source Saul was able to rely on, but with all the racism and his traumatic past, he is unable to pursue his passion for hockey.

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A Long Way Gone Analysis

1110 Words | 5 Pages

Ishmael 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”.

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A Long Way Gone Literary Analysis Essay

672 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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A Long Way Gone Theme Essay

946 Words | 4 Pages

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. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war.

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Symbolism In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

607 Words | 3 Pages

This is seen throughout the symbolism of the novel. Firstly, the first symbol that symbolizes Beah’s loss of innocence is the AK-47. The AK-47 symbolizes in the novel the loss of innocence and provides confidence and a sense of security. We can see his loss of innocence on page 19, “I saw myself holding an AK-47 and walking through a coffee farm with a squad that consisted of many boys and a few adults.

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A Long Way Gone Ishmael's Transformation

536 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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Summary Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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In Beah’s journey becoming a long way gone from himself and his home. He faced metal hardships of war and destruction. But also the physical and social hardships. But he demonstrates that his pliancy helped him overcome the hardship.

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A Long Way Gone Rhetorical Analysis Essay

884 Words | 4 Pages

(need a transition---how does Beah relate to civil war aforementioned—I think I follow and understand but you did not explicitly state, which is always necessary when essay writing) A Long Way Gone is a memoir written and lived by Ishmael Beah. He writes with an intense tone and strong demeanor with his diction,

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A Long Way Gone Conflict Analysis

1572 Words | 7 Pages

At 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.

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A Long Way Gone Character Analysis

1035 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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Examples Of Violence In The Outsiders

890 Words | 4 Pages

He portrays gang violence more than anything. He constantly harrases the greasers accompanied by his gang. Additionally he wears several rings to scratch greasers so they go through more pain. Bob verbally offends the greasers by calling them “White trash with long, greasy hair.” Furthermore, Bob was a heavy drinker, who was “reeling and passing out in the streets” often.

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Reflection On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

498 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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