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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. In the A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, a twelve-year-old explains how he used to go on a swim with his friends and his love for rap music and hip-hop dance. When Ishmael and his friends went to visit Mattru Jong, they visited Ishmael's grandparents in Kabati. While staying at the Mattru Jong, they recieved a terrifying news that Mogbwemo was attacked. When messengers warn the townspeople several times that Mattru Jong is going to be attacked, the townspeople fled and hide until time has passed and everyone returned to their daily life. Until, the rebels actually arrive and people run away from the rebels from more than an hour until the rebels stop chasing them. Ishmael, Junior, Ishmael’s brother, and their friends kept walking for days and began to be very hungry. The only way to get was to scavenge cassava and fruit. They decided to reenter to Mattru Jong to get their hidden money. Even though there are rebels lingering in Mattru Jong, the boys manage to get their hidden money and escape except for one boy who alerted the guards. But, they found out that the marketplace has stopped selling food. Hungry for some food, the boys return to Mattru Jong again. However, they were ambushed by three rebels and Ishmael and Junior were chosen to be killed in line. Gunshots were heard from the village and ... ... middle of paper ... ...r family or to strangers. The reason why I choose theft because money was an issue for us children and the economy in the Philippines is very hard than in the U.S. We don't even have enough money to buy ourselves some soft drinks or any nice luxury items. Pleading and stealing is the only way for us to get it, it was like a survival. We don't even have a luxury toys since we mostly play mud outside and use cans as part of the game we invent. By the time I moved here in the U.S., I knew that I feel out of place and feel like I am unneeded here. Sometimes, I wish that I would have stayed in the Philippines because that place became my home just like Ishmael. But, I grew the liking here in the U.S. and I plan to make this country part of my home. Works Cited Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print.
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah explained his journey throughout his life; whether it was with his family and friends or at war against the rebels in Sierra Leone. During the attack on his village in Mogbwemo, Beah was separated from his family when he was in another city with his brother and friends. At the young age of twelve, Beah was forced to flee from village to village with the aim of escaping the rebels. Eventually, he reluctantly joined the army as a soldier against the rebels. Throughout his memoir, Beah used multiple different tones. Beah described the cheerful times with family and friends, along with the dreadful and shocking times of war.
As I looked at the front and back of A Long Way Gone, I’ve predicted that the story will take place in Sierra Leone, Africa. On the back cover, there is a summary that describes what Ishmael Beah had experienced as a very young child. The photograph on the front cover is a visual representation of the book. From this picture, I can predict that Ishmael was forced to carry many weapons and he is walking often to each destination. I came to this prediction because the boy in the picture is carrying many weapons and I can only assume that it wasn’t his choice to carry a lot of weapons on his back due to the exhaustion on his face. I came to the prediction that Ishmael walked a lot because in the photo, there are holes on the heels of his shoes and the straps are breaking apart.
Ishmael was a normal 12 year old boy in a small village in Sierra Leone when his life took a dramatic turn and he was forced into a war. War has very serious side effects for all involved and definitely affected the way Ishmael views the world today. He endured and saw stuff that most people will never see in a lifetime let alone as a young child. Ishmael was shaped between the forced use of drugs, the long road to recovery and the loss of innocence of his
In his personal memoir titled “A long way Gone” Ishmael Beah incorporated the concept of family into his personal story. Traveling in a world of his own Beah encountered different events where his approach to family evolved. From losing his important primary family, and establishing close relationships with individuals he met along his journey. Hope, revenge, trust & love were three important key stages discovered as his definition and approach to family changed.
In Joseph Plumb Martin’s account of his experiences in the Revolutionary War he offers unique insight into the perspective of a regular soldier, which differs from the views of generals and leaders such as popular characters like George Washington. Martin’s narrative is an asset to historical scholarship as a primary source that gives an in-depth look at how life in the army was for many young men during the War for Independence. He described the tremendous suffering he experienced like starvation and privation. He did not shy away from describing his criticism of the government who he believes did not adequately care for the soldiers during and after the war. While he may be biased because of his personal involvement as a soldier, he seems to relate accounts that are plausible without embellishment or self-aggrandizement. Overall, “A Narrative of A Revolutionary Soldier” is a rich source of information providing an overview of military experience during the war.
Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front is based on World War I; it portrays themes involving suffering, comradeship, chance and dehumanization. The novel is narrated by Paul, a young soldier in the German military, who fights on the western front during The Great War. Like many German soldiers, Paul and his fellow friends join the war after listening to the patriotic language of the older generation and particularly Kantorek, a high school history teacher. After being exposed to unbelievable scenes on the front, Paul and his fellow friends realize that war is not as glorifying and heroic as the older generation has made it sound. Paul and his co-soldiers continuously see horrors of war leading them to become hardened, robot-like objects with one goal: the will to survive.
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,
Ishmael’s search for revenge ended when he was taken out of the front lines of the war by
Since they planned to come back the following day, they didn’t farewell or communicate with anyone wherever they were going, little did they know that they would certainly not come back to their families. It all started when Gibrilla and Kaloko came home early after school and brought with them a grief-stricken update on the eruption of warfare at the mining area. Amongst the mix-up, viciousness and vagueness of the warfare, Ishmael, Junior and his friends roam from settlement to settlement in quest of food and accommodation. On their run, they had seen a lot of massacres and bereavements such as at twilight they saw a lady carrying her dead child on her back, seemingly, the child was shot when the lady ran for her life because blood was dripping from her behind making a stream. In chapter 4, things rapidly changed because even owning any amount of money was useless as there was nowhere to buy food from, rather it lead to them stealing people’s food while they were asleep.
Did you know that every day several hundreds of people are forced out of their home causing them to become a refugee? The universal refugee experience of fleeing and finding a home is difficult since the refugee doesn’t know or understand the language that well and can sometimes be viewed as an outsider. According to the article, “Children at War” by Arthur Brice, Amela Kamenica a teen refugee is forced out of her home due to the war near her hometown. In the novel, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, the main character, Ha is treated like an outcast since she doesn’t know the American traditions and ways. Ha is a ten-year old girl, who has to flee Vietnam because of the war between North and South Vietnam. It is dangerous and unsafe
In “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier”, Ishmael Beah’s life story is one of fear, horror, and tragedy. Growing up as a child soldier in Sierra Leone’s civil war brought struggles unthinkable for a teenager to bear.
The Forgotten Soldier is not a book concerning the tactics and strategy of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Nor does it analyze Nazi ideology and philosophy. Instead, it describes the life of a typical teenage German soldier on the Eastern Front. And through this examined life, the reader receives a first hand account of the atrocious nature of war. Sajer's book portrays the reality of combat in relation to the human physical, psychological, and physiological condition.
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 UNICEF intervenes, Beah is rehabilitated . However Beah has already experiences the bloodshed and violence of war at that time.Then eventually, becomes a spokesperson against using children as soldiers. Through the painful experience , he did many cruel thing that he was never capable of doing before the war for the sake of survival.
Ishmael Beah had a broken family, with divorced parents, living with his younger brother, Ibrahim, his older brother, Junior, along with his mother, and had slim to none communication with his father due to his stepmom. “I had not seen him for a while, as another stepmom had destroyed our relationship.” (10) Before gaining knowledge of any type of war approaching his village, Ishmael, Junior, and they’re mutual friend Talloi left town on a voyage to participate in a talent show in the town of Mattru Jong, where the boys would perform a dance routine set to a track of American rap songs they obtained on a cassette. Once they discovered that their village had been under attack by rebels, who often carve the initials ‘RUF’, which stood for Revolutionary United Front, they quickly scurried back to their village in hopes of coming in contact with their family members. Talloi exclaimed, “We must go back and see if we can find our families before it is too late.” Unfortunately the boys were too late, and their families had fled in attempts to survive. Ishmael, and Junior were accompanied with four close friends whose bond...
Singer, P.W. “Children at War.” Military History 24.6 (2007): 1-5. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 14 Feb. 2011.