In the book A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah redemption is a very common theme. Ishmael is able to redeem himself after being forced to be a childhood soldier and basically brainwashed. He was able to be rehabilitated by the UNICEF program after being at the Benin Home, making frienships with a nurse named Esthur, and meeting family members. At the beginning of the book I strongly believed that there was no way to be able to have redemption for the actions that these people were making. Some of these actions were very gruesome and honestly just inhumane. Although these times took place in Ishmaels life he proved my thoughts wrong. The beginning of Ishmaels rehabilitation process began when he was chosen to leave the war and was rescued by …show more content…
Esther and Ishmael began to have a close relationship. When Ishmael first meets Esther, Esther asked Ishmael if he wants to be her friend and Ishmael says “are you sure you want to be my friend?” and Esther says “maybe not”... but then she says “I am your nurse thats all. If you want to be friends with me, you will have to ask me and I will have to trust you first”, Ishmael smiles immediately because he was thinking the exact same thing. Esther becomes a really good friend to Ishmael and Ishmael really likes her because he feels like she is one of the only people he can really talk to about personally things or just anything in general without being judged. Esther also gets Ishmael the gift of a walkman and cassette player, which made Ishmael very happy and reminded him of his childhood of performing at talent shows and making up songs and dances. Ishmael also came to Esther when he was having really bad dreams and headaches and Ishmael would tell her about her dreams and she would just listen and wouldnt make a comment about them unless Ishmael would tell her he wanted her to. Eventually it even got to a point where Ishmael really looked forward to his visits with Esther. Esther was the closest thing Ishmael had to family, Ishmael told Esther that he didnt feel like he had anything left to live for because he had no family left, Esther replied “Think of me as
Throughout the book the audience has seen Ishmael go through adventure and sorrow. In the novel Ishmael is forced to go to war at age thirteen, but what keeps him going were his grandmother's wise words. His grandmother was the one who told him powerful lessons that he could use in real life. These lesson that Ishmael is keeping him grounded is not only from his grandmother but also from his friends. Lessons that were seen by the readers are “wild pigs”, “Bra Spider”, and the story about the moon.
From many dark to happy times that were never ending. Ishmael Beah examines his life with different tones that enhanced the effect of the story through many intriguing events. From happy occasions to horrendous times of war, with the rebel attack on his home village, to losing his family and being forced to fight the rebels as an army soldier. Beah started out with suspenseful and terrifying tones when he was separated from family and friends when the war started and had to survive on his own. Then the tone changed to dark, life-threatening, and dismal when he reluctantly was in the army killing rebels and given drugs to cope and continue killing. In conclusion, the tone was pleased, satisfied, and peaceful when he was rehabilitated out of the army and went to New York City where he was adopted and could be a kid
It is hard to remain innocent during a time of war. Ishmael was an innocent 12 year old boy when the war broke out and the RUF took over his village. He was chased and shot at by the RUF. As a young boy he had to endure seeing people gunned down in front of him and murdered in the most gruesome ways as illustrated by the author when he said, “I had seen heads cut off by machetes, smashed by cement bricks, and rivers filled with so much blood that the water ceased flowing.”
Ishmael Beah’s first transition on his approach to family began with a strong sense of hope. Consequently, after the separation of his mother, father, and older brother his life completely changed. When he began to take his journey Beah hoped to find his family and survive the war together. In his memoir, Beah demonstrated the idea of hope when he came across a childhood memory that impacted his life. As he walked alone in the forest Beah remembered his father’s significant words of advice that motivated him to find hope and purpose. With this idea in mind, his father once said, “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen” (2007, P. 54). For Ishmael, his father, mother, and
Ishmael was taken from the wild and held captive in a zoo, a circus, and a gazebo. During his time in various types of captivity, Ishmael was able to develop a sense of self and a better understanding of the world around him. Ishmael states that the narrator and those who share the same culture are “captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order live” (Quinn, 15). He goes to explain that releasing humanity from captivity is crucial for survival, but humans are unable to see the bars of the cage. Using the cage as a metaphor, Quinn is referring to human culture and how they do not see the harm it’s causing. As the novel progresses, it elaborates on how culture came about and why certain people inherit certain cultures. Ishmael refers to a story as the explanation of the relationship between humans, the world and the gods. He defines to enact is to live as if the story is a reality. Ishmael suggest that humans are captives of story, comparing them to the people of Nazi Germany who were held captive by Hitler’s
In the book A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael survives and describes his journey while at war. Ishmael was a 13 year old who is forced to become a child soldier. He struggles through a variety of problems. In his journey, he was separated from his family and mostly running for his life. Later on, he has no problem killing people and picking up his gun. In fact, anyone can be evil at any certain time with kids changing, getting drugged, and going back to war.
Ishmael starts his journey with a will to escape and survive the civil war of Sierra Leone in order to reunite with his mom, dad, and younger siblings, who fled their home when his village was attacked by rebels. Having only his older brother, who he escaped with, and a few friends by his side Ishmael is scared, but hopeful. When the brothers are captured by rebels, Ishmael’s belief in survival is small, as indicated by his fallible survival tactics when he “could hear the gunshots coming closer…[and] began to crawl farther into the bushes” (Beah 35). Ishmael wants to survive, but has little faith that he can. He is attempting to survive by hiding wherever he can- even where the rebels can easily find him. After escaping, Ishmael runs into a villager from his home tells him news on the whereabouts of his family. His optimism is high when the villager, Gasemu, tells Ishmael, “Your parents and brothers wil...
In his memoir, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah deals with his loss of innocence as he is forced to join the children army of Sierra Leone in the country's civil war after being conscripted to the army that once destroyed his town in order for Ishmael to survive. His memoir acts as a voice to show the many difficulties that the members of Sierra Leone's child army had to suffer through and their day to day struggle to survive in the worst of conditions. In order to escape the perils and trials of war, Ishmael loses his innocence as he transitions from a child who liked to rap with his friends to a cold blooded solider in the army during the civil war in Sierra Leone. Through his transition, Ishmael is forced to resort to the addiction of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and “brown-brown” just so that he, along with the other members of the child army can have the courage to be able to kill their fellow countrymen and slaughter entire towns who stand in their paths. In order to portray his struggles in the army, Ishmael uses the dramatic elements of memories explained using flashback, dialogue, and first-person narration in order to establish the theme of the memoir being how war causes for a child to lose its innocence. The transition shown in the memoir illustrates how the title of the novel, A Long Way Gone, was chosen because it demonstrates how he is a long way gone psychologically, emotionally, and physically, from the child that he was when the memoir begins to the soldier that he is forced to become.
In language of the sort one might expect from a well educated man speaking with a friend, Ishmael told Quinn the story of his life. A large portion of it was spent in captivity, before a wealthy elderly man befriended and educated him. At the end of Ishmael's tale, Quinn was still somewhat befuddled.
Ishmael’s search for revenge ended when he was taken out of the front lines of the war by
This is at core a pitiful story which encompasses of ruthlessness and miseries endured by Ishmael Beah. All the trials in this story are chronologically prescribed and heart sobbing, in which a person who reads can in time weep while interpreting.
It was not Ishmaels fault that he killed many people, although that is just how he was brought into the war. He was forced in it as a perpetrator and his two options were to kill or be killed by the rebels. Ishmael was a victim of brainwashing and his childhood was stolen from him. He had a long and tortuous journey before he became an innocent victim of brainwashing. As a normal young boy living an average life, you would expect them to be involved in fun, innocent activities rather than a young boy and having all of that taken away to become a soldier against his will. “It took the boy two attempts to cut off my right hand. The first swipe didn't go all the way through the bones, which I saw sticking out in all different shapes and sizes” ( Kamara 40). The boy that carried out his horrific and gruesome deed was no older than Mariatu was. Mariatu begged them not to cut her hands off. She told them that if they did cut her hands off that she would rather them just kill her, but the small boy soldier did not agree. This boy soldier wanted to see her suffer and almost a trophy for him. Mariatu passed out and woke up realizing that it was not a nightmare, that she really did not have hands. She was in pain for many days until she got treated. Mariatu was clearly a victim of torture and horrendous activities carried out
They had been subjected to the horrors of war and careless villance that often don’t lead to resolution just pain and terror. Though so much has already happened much much more happens. After the main horrors the boys go on the run trying to find new villages to rest in and food to eat. They also actively try to search for their family. Saldy after another attack ishmael gets separated from his brother, leaving him to survive along in the woods for quite some time, nearly coming close to seeing his family again before the village that they were supposedly in was attacked by rebels. Ishmael is left to think that his whole family is dead. He never will see them again in life because of the
...ys, they are seized by soldiers and taken to a village engrossed by the military fighting back at the rebels. The fellow children soldiers became Ishmael’s only family at the time, and each of them were supplemented with a white pill, “The corporal said it will boost your energy” says a young soldier. (116) Little did Ishmael and the others know that the tablet was an illicit drug given to them to fight their fatigue and anxiety for a short term to better them in combat with the rebels. Beah unknowingly alters into a blood-craving animal, who kills with numbness and no emotion. “I was not afraid of these lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them.” (119) Ishmael now relies and is addicted to drugs to get through his day-to-day life, including smoking marijuana, and constantly snorting “brown brown” (121) which is a mixture of gunpowder and cocaine.
In her search for identity, Esther often compares herself to others. One sign of depression is the feeling the need to compare yourself to others. Throughout the story, Esther questions other’s morals and characteristics and tries to apply them to herself. One example of this is at the beginning of the novel. She wonders if she is more like her friend Betsy, or her friend, Doreen. She describes Betsy as a good girl, and Doreen as more of the bad girl type. Although Betsy is a cheerful and optimistic person, Esther concludes that she can relate more to Betsy. She cannot understand why though, because she feels as if she is not a happy, nor optimistic person.