Young Ishmael Beah: A Long Way Gone
Murderer. When you think about this word, the first thing that pops into your mind wouldn’t be a child, but for many around the world, this is the case. Over 300,000 children fight in wars around the world, slaughtering person after person without mercy. Ishmael Beah’s a long way gone is about the author’s first-hand experience of the 10 – year civil war in Sierra Leone, in which he was turned into one of these brutal, savage killers and then later rehabilitated. In the beginning of the book, young Ishmael, who is about 12 years old at the time, travels to a city called Mattru Jong with his brother, Junior, to participate in a talent show, where they learn that their village was attacked by a rebel group. Soon after, Mattru Jong is attacked …show more content…
During combat, many innocent civilians can be killed either by accident or on purpose or accidental, which will cause their friends and or family members to want compensation for those deaths of their loved ones. According to Mike Wessels’s article Sierra Leone: Child Soldiers, “[…] families encourages sons to join opposition groups as a means of avenging the deaths of family members or of seeking ‘blood revenge’” (Wessels). During the book a long way gone, one of Ishmael’s mail goals is seeing his family again. When he reaches the village that his family was staying in, however, it is attacked and his family is burned alive inside a building. This traumatic experience causes Ishmael to want the rebels to pay for what they did to his family. “Whenever I looked at the rebels during the raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I lost my family […] I shot as many as I could” (Beah, 122). Ishmael hated the rebels with a burning passion for killing his family, so his anger grew and grew and he began to kill as many as possible in effort to satisfy his hunger for revenge. Ishmael’s desire for revenge not only stemmed from his family’s deaths, but from the deaths of his companions as well. “Every time I stopped shooting to change magazines and saw my two young lifeless friends, I angrily pointed my gun into the swamp and killed more people” (Beah, 119). The death of Ishmael’s friends provided an even bigger reason to despise the rebels, for his friends were almost his new family. Ishmael had gone deeper down the path into hatred and began to have no mercy, for he imagined his victims as the murderers of his friends and family. All in all, Ishmael’s desire to avenge the deaths of his friends and family was a big part in him becoming a child
Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
1347 Words | 6 Pages“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is a moving war story about the author, Ishmael Beah, and his life growing up in the african country. Sierra Leone is the setting during the civil war which spanned from March of 1991 to January of 2002. Ishmael provides a stance against child soldiers, and has stuck with that view ever since he was rehabilitated. This book presents strong first hand encounters and vivid war stories. This helps prove the argument that child soldiering is a cruel act, and by using rehabilitation, victims would be able to return to regular life.
Themes In Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
925 Words | 4 PagesMost people assume that their lives are constant from day to day, the same routine goes to school or work, some afternoon activities and so on. But what most of us don’t imagine is that we are so close to the edge, tragedies that seem foreign to us appear from nowhere and turn our lives upside down. In long way gone, a story of a child soldier named Ishmael Beah, many tragedies, events has bestowed upon him, and he to choose to die or survive. These tragedies have transformed him from innocent child to ruthless child soldier to rehabilitate adult with the scars of war that destroyed his country.
Ishmael Beah As A Child Soldier
821 Words | 4 PagesIshmael is unique because he is both the inflictor and victim. Throughout his “service” as a child soldier underneath the Government’s army, Ishmael was repeatedly drugged and manipulated. These alterations included the glorification of war movies and the consumption of destructive substances (Beah ). Ishmael had never been this way before; he was once just an ordinary Sierra Leonean boy. In the time before he became a soldier, Ishmael talks about the distrust people felt towards each other.
Ishmael Beah Narrative Report
777 Words | 4 PagesGabe Tonucci 8/20/2015 “These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past”(Beah 20). After a month of living in the relative safety of New York City, Ishmael Beah haunted by the events that he witnessed and took part in during the war. No one in New York could possibly understand what he had to go through, leaving all these thoughts trapped inside of his head. Not helping his situation is the fact that every night he tosses and turns from having nightmares we witnessed the RUF preform and the horrible things he did himself. He is a young man divided against himself, as his country had been divided against itself - in both cases, due to the rebels' violent actions.
Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah
973 Words | 4 PagesAfter rehabilitation, Ishmael was to go out in society, but that’s when the war reach to the city; Ishmael said, “more armed men arrived, and they began firing and knocking people’s heads with the butts of their guns. The armed men began tossing tear gas. Civilians began to vomit on the sidewalks and bleed through their noses” (Beah 205). This brought Ishmael flashbacked his war memories, he knew exactly what happened, because he seen, and been through the massacres before. So when the war come to him again, he don’t want to be involved it.
A Long Way Gone Analysis
1110 Words | 5 PagesNot experiencing war is a luxury many people unfortunately do not get; however, Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone, lives and survives the war, though not without heartache. With war there is always fear, death, and hell. Ishmael Beah proves war is hell through the killing of civilians, the distrust, and the after effects of the war. Ishmael proves war is hell through the killing of civilians. Many innocent bystanders of the war are forced out of their homes, made to run for their lives.
What Is The Loss Of Innocence In A Long Way Gone
1040 Words | 5 PagesEven though Ishmael had not been to the war yet, he had experienced so much trauma already. They caused him to picture terrifying situations. Even when he could settle down enough to get some sleep, terrorizing nightmares filled his mind with panic. When these things started happening to Ishmael, he tried to shut them off with drugs but it didn’t help. Instead, it would not only cause migraines but also cause him to shut down completely which demonstrates his loss of humanity.
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
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.
A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah Character Analysis
657 Words | 3 PagesIn the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has to overcome his fears and desperation especially when he ends up in villages that dislike little kids because of the assumption that they are rebel soldiers. Sometimes he comes face to face with death like the time when some of the villagers who were suffering the civil war, capture Ishmael and his new accompanied friends they were saying ”We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding. The crowds shouted, drown the rebels”(Beah 38). When the village guards found a rap cassette in Ishmael's pocket they played the music and it pleased the chief and so they were excused from execution and as a result they were offered to also stay in the village for how long they wanted. This part in the story paves a path from Ishmael to talk and although that was one of his major obstacles pertaining to his life he succeeded and faced adversity by pleading that they were not rebels but
Ishmael Beah's Memories
775 Words | 4 PagesMemories “Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose”(Arnold). In the book a long way gone a boy named Ishmael beah tells his story. In this novel Ishmael’s village is eventually raided and he becomes on his own. Through being on his own he thinks of the past and memories of a better life. These memories that he thinks of can hinder him and help him along the way through his journey.
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 Pages”(Beah, 112). The corporal uses the rebels as a way to control the children 's emotions and use them for himself. He makes Ishmael’s desire start to transition towards creating destruction. Later, Ishmael and his friend’s enter into the battlefield. During this time, Ishmael kills his first victim and his desire completely turns into killing sprees.
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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