A Long Way Gone - 3 Essay

A long way gone by Ishmael Beah, attempts to evoke a powerful response from the leader, by using vivid descriptions to show how he has become emotionally traumatized by the acts of violence in the war. The reader then sympathizes with Ishmael and begins to understand the lasting and deep, emotional pain that Ishmael deals with on a daily basis.

Ishmael Beah was a boy from Sierra Leone who became a soldier in the country`s tragic civil war. He spent nearly all his childhood running away from the war and eventually ended up joining the army. During difficult times, Ishmael always held on to hope to continue his life’s journey. In A Long Way Gone, the theme is “Always have hope”, and is shown through Ishmael Beah’s hope for a better life, to find his family, and through the rehab staff`s hope for the boy soldiers.

In the story, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael’s life experiences while escaping the war show how everything in life should be cherished, because one day those great features are there but they can easily be taken away. Ishmael Beah has experienced the traumatizing effect of war and how it can tear someone apart and morph them into a completely different person. This happened to Ishmael himself. He was brainwashed and his mind was molded into believing that revenge is the answer to the deaths of his family members. This essentially is why he puts his safety and wellbeing at risk. He goes from being a twelve year old boy who heard stories of the war, but never imagined it chasing after him, to running away from this inescapable war only

In the novel A Long Way Gone, there are many examples throughout that emphasize the theme by using symbols. The hip hop cassettes that Ishmael carries around with him are an important symbol as without them he would not have been able to survive. It also provides the image of his lost childhood. The music was able to assist him in many ways of survival. On his journey Ishmael uses them to show his talent and passion, and to prove to other’s that he is just a teenage boy trying to escape from the war. “I ran toward the fire, but the cassettes had already started to melt. Tears formed in my eyes, and my lips shook as I turned away." (Beah 110). Once the cassettes were gone, he lost all hope. Beah created a clear and evident meaning behind the

In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah encourages the opinion that everyone is responsible for his/her own actions in all cases. Beah proves this opinion to be true through death, thievery, and violence.

“If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen...” (pg. 54). Throughout the course of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, we familiarize ourselves with the exceptional hardships that Ishmael has experienced as a child soldier, in Sierra Leone, and what actions he takes to overcome them. Despite the fact that Ishmael has been through these devastating hardships and that he became the fear that he himself feared, Ishmael is able to instill hope and keep the reader going through the themes of powerful memories, nature and redemption. He does this through the use of powerful memories that contrast the fear and danger of the war with the remembrance of the beauty of life. Furthermore, nature leaves the reader striving

For a boy who often has a great deal of misfortune in his life, he also seems to have an endless amount of luck. Though fate may have played a big role in starting Ishmael’s war life, his luck always helps him overcome the obstacles the war throws at him. Before the war, Ishmael spends more than a month in the forest alone before he finally runs into people again. Ishmael consciously joins the new group of six boys. With over miles and miles of empty forest and rebel territory, Ishmael was lucky to find a group of boys who have the same motives as him. As the boys continue on their journey, they’ve been captured and are brought to a nearby village; they wait

This memoir about a boy soldier was very condescending. This was a true story for the author, Ishmael Beah and his life-changing events that occurred in his past. Ishamel Beah was a twelve year old African boy who lived in Sierra Leone Africa who fled attacking rebels due to a civil war in his country, who wandered into different villages trying to avoid the violence that seemed almost inevitable. He sauntered along with his brother and friends who scraped by day-by-day scavenging for food and struggled for survival. In the fifth chapter of the book, Beah describes the struggles he went through by saying, “…our joints weakened and ached” (p. 30). After days of traveling, Beah was eventually taken by the group of rebels and became one of

The book I chose to read for my summer reading assignment was A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. By judging this book by its title, I knew it was going to be a nonfiction piece focusing on one person’s experience on this gruesome topic. I expected this novel to graphic and eye opening about the life of a child soldier.

In the memoir of Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah states that his life’s journey has been a huge obstacle, but has learned to overcome that struggle by venting while the two contradictory sides continue their battling. Beah accomplishes his goal of explaining to the reader his point of view through the use of rhetorical questions, scenic narration, and parallelism. Ishmael Beah’s apparent purpose is to share personal accounts of his life with his fellow country men, in a country where war affects people to a level beyond the imagination. He is able to apply his purpose using a grotesque and bitter tone. Beah approaches his audience of ordinary people in this manner in order to vent his feelings about war by

Starting a calm day in Sierra Leone to surviving, and being trafficked into the army is what Ishmael Beah experiences as a child. A Long Way Gone is a memoir of a child soldier, Ishmael Beah, and the memoir shows the experiences he has throughout his childhood. Beah experiences trauma of the war just like all of the other child soldiers. Ishmael is one of the very little amount that survive the war. The three main themes in A Long Way Gone are the themes of survival, healing, and memory.

In A Long Way Gone Ishmael uses flashbacks, symbolism, and nature motifs to illustrate the loss of his innocence. Beah’s memoir shows how he and all the other boy soldiers lost their childhood when they became a solider. At the age of 13 was the end of his childhood where he believes his childhood ended. Through the whole book he tries to use his memories as comfort and a reminder that he is still a child no matter the situation.

This quote is telling readers that the drugs were basically making them more violent. Before they would go to war the soldiers would give them drugs. Beah stated, “A soldier came by with a plastic bag full of some kind of tablets. As soon as we took the tablets, it was time to leave.” (Beah, 116).

What did A Long Way Gone teach you from a historical perspective? What did Ishmael’s personal history communicate to you about the recent history of his homeland?

Ishmael uses his love of hip-hop and rap music as a symbol of freedom and a reminder of happier times. This is evident in the lines, “The four of us had started rap and dance group” as well as the line, “I ran towards the fire, but the cassettes had started to melt. Tears formed in my eyes, and my lip shook as I turned away.” These lines describe Ishmael’s love for hip-hop and rap and his devastation when his cassettes of the music are destroyed. The most significant moment for Ishmael with the music would be when it helps him learn to trust. This is evident in the line, “When I unwrapped it, I jumped up and hugged her.” This line shows the joy that Ishmael feels when a nurse gives him a Walkman and a cassette tape of a rap artist. In time this gesture of kindness helped Ishmael trust the nurse, Esther. Music is a strong symbol of freedom throughout his young