A Long Way Gone Analysis

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 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.

Ishmael Beah had a really tough life throughout his childhood and teenage years. In his literary work, A Long Way

“I have been rehabilitated now, so don’t be afraid of me. I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child” (Beah 199). Ishmael Beah had a long road to rehabilitate but he was able to rehabilitate because he had vital forces shaping him. In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, a long way gone, Ishmael was a child soldier in Sierra Leone. He wrote a memoir sharing his experiences of being a child soldier and of him rehabilitation. During 1991 to 2002 there was a vicious civil war going on in the western African country of Sierra Leone between the RUF rebels and the government forces. Ishmael Beah was a young 10-year-old boy who lived in a small village, he liked rap music and dancing hip hop with his friends. Ishmael was never affected by the war until one day when

In the introduction of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he writes, “There were all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it was happening in a faraway and different land. It wasn’t until refugees started passing through our town that we began to see that it was actually taking place in our country” (Beah 1). During this statement Beah says that he is completely oblivious to the war around him. These people living in Sierra Leone had adapted to the war to the point where their perception had been altered. With this memoir he shares his experiences and obstacles he faces throughout the war to become a beckon of hope in this despairing country. Ishmael uses his social skills, timely luck, and emotional strength, to find the courage to overcome these adversities and survive in and out of the war.

Ishmael reveals that he still lives by something he had learned during his time as a soldier. He says, “People like the lieutenant, whom I had obeyed and trusted, had made me question trusting anyone, especially adults...I had come to believe that people befriended only to exploit one another” (page 153). Since Ishmael has the idea implemented in his head that no one is to be trusted, he isolates himself from everyone and everything that has the potential to help him on the road to recovery after fighting in the war. Another example of his destructive belief of distrust is displayed when Ishmael meets his new family for the first time. He immediately wonders, “What if he is just some man pretending to be my uncle?” (p. 172) and struggles to show his happiness because he “had become accustomed to not showing it” (p. 178). This is just one of the many instances in which Ishmael prevents himself from opening up due to his secluded way of thinking. Ultimately, Ishmael becomes preoccupied with the idea that no one is to be trusted, which results in him isolating himself from those he

Ishmael's steady presentation to violence made him encounter serious measures of mental injury that tormented him later on in life. Ishmael experienced bad dreams that profusely agitated him:

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, tells of the experiences in his intense journey through Sierra Leone during the outbreak of war. Beah had to learn to survive the harsh outcome of the war, resulting in the loss of those whom were close to him, family and friends, and trust in people. The book has a recurring theme of nature and the natural world. In the book, the world at night, as well as the moon, serves as both a safeguard and a bringer of bereavement.

A Little boy forced into a man's shoe Ishmael Beah the boy who survived a war.Ishmael Beah wrote the memoir A Long Way Gone about himself surviving as a boy soldier for the RUF (Revolutionary United Front).Ishmael Beah writes in first person view so the experience is more involving to the reader.Ishmael Beah lived in Sierra leone a small country in Africa he was a little kid with his friends making a rap group on their way to a talent show until they heard screaming and people running.Ishmael Beah develops the themes of sanctity of life,loss of one's innocence,and survival under unique conditions in his memoir A Long Way Gone as an example of describing the importance of the memoir topic.

The book A Long Way Gone, was an honest book. It showed the struggles of war and what it does to a person. The story of Ishmael Beah is a valuable one, full of love, struggle, family and violence. One of the things that is great about this book, is that it shows a clear progression of Ishmael’s character, from a sweet young boy, to a hardened young man You can see is innocence being slowly ripped away by the military, who forced him to smoke gunpowder and massacre villages. He is a real role model for kids who are struggling to get through something. If this boy can get through a war and survive, then you can get through this! The thing I didn’t like about it is the violence. They could have gotten away with not showing a baby being cut out

Ishmael Beah tells of the events of his youth and untimely loss of his childhood in his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. In this heart wrenching recollection of his childhood, Ishmael tells of how the war in Sierra Leone changed his life and took him from the life he led as a child growing up with his family, hobbies, love of music and mischief, and left him a wandering orphan and later, a brutal soldier who’s daily activities consisted of killing, burning and thievery. Surviving the fate that befell him required resorting to tactics that skewed the basis of reality. The basis of Beah’s existence was sustained on the fact that he and the other soldiers around him maintained a daily struggle of tug of war between their traumatized

A Long Way Gone is an autobiography which tells the raw, mesmerizing story of how Ishmael Beah lived as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Guns, violence and fear are reoccurring themes throughout the entire novel which shed light on the constant controversy over guns. As Beah recalls his horrific encounters with guns in his early childhood, it’s clear to see the power they give to a person. When confronted with a gun, people become desperate and are willing to do anything to survive even if it results in them abandoning their morals. Beah illustrates the abandonment of morals in desperate times as he writes, “And as the gunfire intensified, people gave up looking for their loved ones and ran out of town” (9). Guns also

The novel, “A Long Way Gone”, documents Ishmael Beah’s youth in Sierra Leone in the year of 1993 during a civil war. At the age of twelve, Ishmael lost his family due to the invasion of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) causing his village, Mattru Jong, that he cherishes the most to be destructed. This was the start of his difficult journey of survival. At the age of thirteen, he became a brainwashed child soldier who was filled with raging vengeance against the RUF. Ishmael lost his pure innocence and childhood due to the civil war. Eventually, he escaped from being a corrupted indoctrinate child soldier and was sent to rehab. After some time in rehab, Ishmael received the treatment he needed. He then, lived with his uncle Tommy in the city for some time and soon the war began to repeat in the city, the killings, invasion, and demolition of homes. Ishmael became fearful again and this time he’ll be escaping to another country to avoid from being a soldier again.

The autobiography written by Ishmael Beah, shows a lot of experience that tells the reader about the human condition and what it means to be a human being. In this story, Ishmael’s experience is displayed for an eye-opener to everyone about the cruel world around them. With that being said, not everyone is at fault, but this book shows a different perspective of a person with an extremely different culture from our own. For anyone that lives freely, this life story would make anyone feel guilty for not having to battle their way to adulthood. Ishmael’s experiences show how quickly a person’s life can change depending on the current circumstances. Ishmael had a very eventful and traumatizing life, one that took surviving, changing as a person, and a process of recovering. After reading this autobiography, Ishmael’s life story tells the public a lot about human condition and what it means to be a human.

In A Long Way Gone, it highlights, “These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past” (Beah 20). Ishmael Beah is haunted by old memories of the war and can’t recognize himself more and more each time he has to make a bad decision. Ishmael states, “My eyes widened, a smile forming on my face. Even in the middle of the madness there remained that true and natural beauty, and it took my mind away from my current situation as I marveled at this sight” (Beah 59). The text explains that Ishmael even after all the violence he has been put through, he still has a pure heart and knows that that pure heart is there to help him through these times that he can’t