The Impact of Found Families One common aspect of coming-of-age stories in the media is the presence of found families. The two texts A Long Way Gone and Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse contribute ideas of found family in their own unique ways. In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah’s life is turned upside down when Sierra Leone goes into revolution, leaving him to survive, along with his new friends that he meets along the way. A pop culture context used to support this claim is Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse, the story of Miles Morales, a teenager who gets turned into Spiderman and must learn to control his powers with the help of his found family to defeat Kingpin. A family can be started for personal needs, but can grow further into fulfilling …show more content…
This new family will also grow together and create bonds that will help them maintain their morality and esteem and hold an everlasting relationship over time. While alone in the jungle, Beah states, “The most difficult part of being in the forest was the loneliness. It became unbearable each day” (Beah 52). Beah’s main enemy throughout his time in the jungle is himself. He finds food and water throughout his time and knows how to keep himself out of danger by using the trees to his advantage. With that, he is unable to sustain his mental identity and needs company to keep himself safe, not just from the lurking rebels, but also from his own insanity. Later, after finding a group of boys his age, the novel says, “[Beah and his found family] couldn’t walk well, so [they] just hobbled around the hut and made fun of each other to avoid boredom” (Beah 62). With his new found family, Beah can maintain his mental stability and esteem. By connecting through survival, they are able to build …show more content…
City and A Long Way Gone: Violence’s Impact on Youth It is a well-known fact that a child’s environment is one of the most influential factors in their mental development in the early stages of their life and one that is heavily discussed in both Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, and Kendrick Lamar’s song, M.A.A.D. City. The. Typically, children raised in safe, loving homes develop differently than those raised in unsafe and violent environments, which creates a huge impact on how they interact with individuals and the world around them later on. Surroundings are arguably one of the most significant components in both mental and physical growth and development, so those who do not grow up in ideal circumstances often experience long-lasting detrimental impacts on various aspects of their mental condition. Despite taking place on opposite sides of the world, Beah and Lamar both explore the idea of how violent communities strip children of their innocence as a result of constant exposure and desensitization to crime and death, using personal anecdotes to meaningfully convey the extent of the impact. In Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah witnessed firsthand the impacts of civil war in his country. The conflict that he initially thought to be distant quickly spread to his home, where he found himself face-to-face with widespread starvation and death. Beah rapidly went from living peacefully, going to school, playing soccer, and listening to rap music to being
that remains constant in every part of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Ishmael begins the novel optimistic, believing he will find his family again. This optimism is later lost when Ishmael is recruited by the army to fight against the rebels, causing him to become addicted to drugs and the thrill of killing. Three years after his recruitment, Ishmael is rescued by UNICEF-a group dedicated to rehabilitating child soldiers. During his rehabilitation, Ishmael discovers hope once more by relearning
A Long Way Gone is a true story based on the life of a young boy name Ishmael Beah, who became a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Ishmael fought for almost 3 years before he was rescued by UNICEF. There are many themes throughout this entire book but I focus on survival and family in this essay because it seems to intertwine with other themes like hope and emotional damage. When Ishmael became a child soldier he didn’t have anything to really live for but the next day. His family was killed and he
Book Summary In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, a former boy soldier with the Sierra Leone army during its civil war(1991- 2002) with the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), provides an extraordinary and heartbreaking account of the war, his experience as a child soldier and his days at a rehabilitation center. At the age of twelve, when the RUF rebels attack his village named Mogbwemo in Sierro Leone, while he is away with his brother and some friends, his life takes a major twist. While
A Long way gone is an emotional book about a boy who lives in a village in Africa when there is suddenly a rumor of an attack by rebels near them. They get back to there village seeing it in panic; They are now on the run trying to survive. A Long Way Gone is a true and sad story, showing that people will turn on others for their own agenda. The book tells the story of Ishmael Beah, who lived in Sierra Leone along with his family and friends before it was attacked. He then goes on to walk hundreds
In A Long Way Gone, the author Ishmael Beah, a member of the HRWC RDAC offers the firsthand visualization of war from the perspective of a former soldier as a child. Beah born in Sierra Leone describes the violent civil war that destroyed his home time. Sierra Leone was one of the countries during the 1970s-1980s that when the government forces a child to transform into a young boy into a killing machine as one member of the army. Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He was forced to
Katherine Grossman Chestnut Honors English IV 8 March 2024 A Long Way Gone vs Born to Run What kind of music did you listen to as a kid? Were you stuck listening to your parents' music, or did you find the music you like on your own? The music we listen to as children has a major impact on our future lives; that impact can just be nostalgia for your childhood, comfort when you need it, or a fundamental influence on a child's mind that they carry with them for the rest of their life. Two people
This book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmeal Beah, is an insider look at how the Civil War in Sierra Leone affected refugees and also delves into foreign affairs of the United States. I think this book would be beneficial to a scholar or student because the way the book is written is both informative and gripping. This book is a recount of a former child soldier’s experience in his war-stricken country. The author puts a face on the issue of child warfare in third-world countries
The Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah remarked itself as a best selling child soldier book ever written.The book gets more interesting and induce reader’s curiosity ,when they question about incidence that occur during the war.In A Long Way Gone memoir, the author reveal how vital was his actions to his survival. When he was 12 years old Beah’s village was attacked by rebel forces. Ishmael is separated from his family and eventually forced to serve as a child soldier for the Sierra Leone Military.When
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah follows the journey of a twelve year old boy as a child soldier for the RUF, or Revolutionary United Front. Through the novel we’re brought along on Ishmael’s journey as he changes from the normal, adventurous young boy, to a mad killing machine, and then rehabilitated by the UNICEF. After his “realization,” Ishmael uses his past to educate and help others on the issue of the use of children in war. The story begins two years before Beah is forced to be a soldier
Imagine if you were forced to fight in a war and found that your world became unrecognizable by violence. This is exactly what Ishmael Beah had to go through in Sierra Leone. This experience prompted him to write his memoir, A Long Way Gone. I chose this book because I thought it would be a beautiful, interesting story I can learn from rather than just giving fact after fact. This is a riveting story about a twelve year old boy and his friends setting off onto a journey to find their families and
INTRODUCTION An attention-grabbing story of a youngster’s voyage from end to end. In “A LONG WAY GONE,” Ishmael Beah, at present twenty six years old tells a fascinating story he had always kept from everyone. When he was twelve years of age, he escaped attacking the revolutionaries and roamed a land-living rendered distorted by violence. By thirteen, he’d been chosen up by the government military and Ishmael Beah at nature a gentle young boy, bring into being that he was accomplished of really dreadful
group accurately, or is biased and does not show what may of veritably happened?WHAT IS WRONG HERE????. Ishmael Beah, author and the main character of memoir, “A Long Way Gone” was a child soldier who experienced many difficulties and struggles during the Sierra Leone Civil War. His story is accurate according to Ron Hogan, who writes “Ishmael Beah: My Story Is All True,” and explains how Beah defends himself from the Australian press to prove that his story is true. However, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
tier, and self-actualization at the pinnacle. In the novel, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the reader witnesses all tiers of the pyramid through the perspective of Ishmael. Ishmael begins his journey as a child, and is thrusted into the horrifying life of war. As result, he’s stripped of every tier in Maslow’s pyramid of needs, and must work to regain self-actualization. To begin, Ishmael lives his early child and the beginning
The book, “ A Long Way Gone”, by Ishmael Beah, music played an important role in Ishmael's life. One song that I can relate to this book is “Life is Worth Living” by Justin Bieber. Some of the lyrics in their somewhat contributes to parts of Ishmael’s life. Justin Bieber’s song indicates that your life isn’t that bad and you should have hope. You should not give up continue on even though you have made a silly mistake today. “People make mistakes, doesn't mean you have to give in. Life is worth
Part 1:Summary The title of my book is “A Long Way Gone”. The author of the book is Ishmael Beah and this book was published on February 13, 2007. This book is about a civil war in Sierra Leone and the army arming little kids to fight for them in the civil war. It was a war between two groups, the rebels and the Sierra Leone army. The rebels would take over villages and force younger boys to join their army to help overthrow the government. They would arm the kids with guns and rocket launchers.