Literary Analysis
Being surrounded by the death and blood of a war can be overwhelming for many growups, but having to face war at the age of thirteen forces children to lose their innocence and learn survival skills. After losing his family in the war Ishmael Beah and his brother fend for themselves in the middle of a war in their home town Sierra Leone. It is not until after Ishmael's brother dies that Ishmael joins the rebels and begins to kill innocent town people. At the age of 15 Ishmael was rescued by UNICEF and was taken into rehab for three years where he learned to recover from his drug addiction and cope with the flashbacks of war. Ishmael Beah was a young boy soldier who fought through a war, was able to overpass his obstacles he faced in and is now able to help and support other young soldiers who experience the same hardships he had. Throughout A Long Way Gone many universal themes are present. The first theme that is shown through the entire story is survival. “We were so hungry that it hurt to drink water and we felt cramps in our guts. It was as though something were eating our stomachs”(Beah) As the boys struggle to find enough food to live they begin to lose weight and struggle to get through the day. The journey
…show more content…
When the rebels attacked his home at the age of thirteen he lost his entire family, except for his younger brother. Having to support themselves and try to live on their own was one conflict that was shown in the beginning of the novel. Then after his brother dies Beah knows he is about to die so he allows the soldiers to take him and he joins the rebels. Being a boy soldier is brutal. He gets brainwashed and is given no reason to why he should have to attack innocent town people. To cope with what he does Beah turns to drugs (Beah). During Beah's life he faced many conflicts and in his autobiography he shares about the loss of his family and becoming a
The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This along with the language used and the order, in which the events are disclosed, all serve to create a particular interpretation and to guide the reader to respond in a particular way.
Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, narrates the story of Ishmael’s life as a child soldier in the Sierra Leonean civil war. Ishmael chronicles his journey from a scared, adrift child who lost his family in the war to a brutal child soldier who mercilessly killed many individuals to a guilt stricken rehabilitated teen who slowly learns to overcome his remorse from his past actions. Ishmael’s life as a child soldier first started when the Sierra Leonean army took him and his friends with them to the village, Yele, occupied by army officials and seemingly safe from the rebels. Unfortunately, within a few weeks of their stay, the rebels attacked Yele, and Ishmael and his friends decided to make the choice of becoming a child soldier in order to sustain their slim chances of staying alive. Ishmael’s interaction with violence was very different as a child soldier compared to as a civilian: while he witnessed violent actions before, as a child soldier he was committing them. As his life as a soldier demanded more violence from him, Ishmael sank deeper into the process of dehumanization with his main driving point being the revenge that he sought from the rebels for the deaths of his family and friends. After a few months as a child soldier, Ishmael was brought to the Benin home by UNICEF officials who hoped to rehabilitate the completely dehumanized child soldiers. With the help of Esther, a compassionate nurse, and other staff members in the center, Ishmael was able to ultimately reverse the effects of the war on him. By forgiving himself and the rebels who took away his close ones from him, Ishmael was able to restore his emotion of empathy and become rehabilitated.
A prominent theme in A Long Way Gone is about the loss of innocence from the involvement in the war. A Long Way Gone is the memoir of a young boy, Ishmael Beah, wanders in Sierra Leone who struggles for survival. Hoping to survive, he ended up raiding villages from the rebels and killing everyone. One theme in A long Way Gone is that war give innocent people the lust for revenge, destroys childhood and war became part of their daily life.
I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I’ve come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge..” (199). At the UN, he speaks with many children who had parallel encounters in their own countries. Beah apprehends that he is not alone. After years of observing and instigating futile deaths, Beah finally values his own life. Nonetheless, while for the most part the tone was uplifting there were still reminders that Beah’s past will continue to haunt his present and future. Beah remains having nightmares and flashbacks. In addition, he does not completely open up to his family about what he had encountered and endured. Beah says, “They wanted to know about me, and I wasn’t ready to tell them.” (184). No matter how much support he may have, it does not erase the ghastly actions he has witnessed and endured and this confirms he is still fighting inner demons. This shows the effect the war has on people and Beah was trying to bring awareness to that by his
His uncle and his family always provided him with a welcome and appreciative environment. After leaving the rehabilitation center and moved to his uncle’s household Beah and his cousins had the opportunity to share and spend time together. In Chapter 19 of his personal story, Beah described some of the memories and new experiences lived with his cousin. One meaningful memory was when Ishmael and Allie went to a dance club and were having fun. In that situation, Ishmael met and talked to individuals. Soon enough his life transformed into the life of a normal child. As he slowly moved on from his negative experiences during the war Beah valued and developed a close attachment towards his uncle, aunt, and cousin his new
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...
The war in Sierra Leone lasted eleven years and resulted in mass murder, destruction, and mainly, loss of innocence. This war impacted nearly everyone in the country, however its specific damage on the children of Sierra Leone is a tragedy that haunts the victims to this day. The Rebels killed and tortured thousands of innocent people and destroyed villages throughout the country. Boys as young as twelve were forced to form an army and fight against the rebels. Ishmael Beah, a young boy living amongst this war, tells his story in the book A Long Way Gone. He explains the gory and disturbing details of his life as a boy soldier. As the young boys were brainwashed into killing, the women and young girls of the country were being raped,
During the war, people struggle to differentiate their enemies from friends causing people to act on fear. Survival is paramount and trusting someone can lead to the deaths of an entire village. Beah wrote,”Many times during our journey were surrounded by muscular men with machetes who almost killed us before realizing we were children just running away from war.” (Page 72, Chapter 8). War causes people to be on edge and trust is no longer a connection but a reason that could end a person's life. The major theme in “A Long Way Gone” is survival and acting based on an emotional concept can cost atrocities.
...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.
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 deeds. Few days later on the rampage he is unrestricted by military and referred to a UNICEF rehabilitation centre, he wriggled to re-claim his humankind and to re-enter the biosphere of non-combatants, who seen him with terror and distrust . This is at preceding a story of revitalisation and hopefulness.
Poverty and homelessness are often, intertwined with the idea of gross mentality. illness and innate evil. In urban areas all across the United States, just like that of Seattle. in Sherman Alexie’s New Yorker piece, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the downtrodden. are stereotyped as vicious addicts who would rob a child of its last penny if it meant a bottle of whiskey.
Beah struggled and it was easy to tell that the violence he saw changed him. Things started to steadily improve for him, but he knew all the killing he did will never be extinguished from his mind. Adjusting back to a modern day society was unknown to him, but he somehow accomplished his goal. He is now a Children's rights leader, and wants to end global child wars. Beah said, “ What happens in the context of war is that, in order for you to make a child into a killer, you destroy everything that they know, which is what happened to me and my town. My family was killed, all of my family, so I had nothing.” The horrors he faced can not be relinquished from his mind. They will forever be with him, and the goal of this novel is to notify everyday people about the ongoing child wars in foreign
Forced to become a child soldier, Beah experiences many horrific and life changing things. Among these, the drastic cultural changes that occurred as a result of the war. The increased western influence in the region only advanced the societal changes. In the memoir, Beah explains the significance of western culture and both the positive and negative effects it has on him and his peers. On one side, western values and items were beneficial to Beah and his peers in the sense that the cassettes Beah carried around with him saved his life on multiple occasions.
... instill the violent act of killing in the minds of the child soldiers. Ishmael learns that he must channel his rage and seek revenge for the death of his family. From this, Ishmael and many other young soldiers now believed that revenge was the only way to fight for what they have lost. It is because of this violent filled society that Ishmael and other young soldiers suffered from a disorder called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a mental condition that occurs as a result of a psychological shock, which in this case is the war. As Ishmael was being pulled out of the corruption he was living in, it was at this time that readers realized that he was suffering from PTSD, and was going to receive help in order to correct it. All in all, it is the manipulation and misuse of the power of authority that impacts innocent young soldiers in a psychological manner.