A Long Way Gone Analysis

“When I was seven I had an answer to this question that made sense to me….if I was the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament” (Beah 218). A Long Way Gone is a memoir of a child soldier who is the author himself Ishmael Beah. Beah around the ages of twelve to thirteen grew up in Sierra Leone during its civil war. During his story, Beah talks in a tone that is straight to the point, however many devices help the reader imagine his loss of innocence. Beah uses a series of flashbacks, symbols and motifs to illustrate his loss to his readers.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from Birmingham Jail. Ishmael Beah, author of the book A Long Way Gone speaks from experience. He was plagued with a war in his home country, taking away his childhood and family. This injustice caused him to have to fight in the war and resort to drugs to take away his mental and physical pain. Similarly, in One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, Delphine and her sisters struggle with the injustice that is not knowing their mother at the ages of eleven, nine, and seven, and the injustice of being black during a time period when people are segregated because of their color. Their father hesitantly flies them across the United States to see their mother that they haven’t met before, and who has secrets of her own. In both books, the children are forced to grow up faster than they should and take care of themselves and others, and since they are children it is more difficult to deal with the situations that are hard even for a grown person. When a person is forced to start a new life because of an injustice, they are going to be nervous; but over time when they meet people, they will gain confidence to speak out.

While being face to face with war, Ishmael illustrates what he, as well as his life, has become, “My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector and my rule was to kill or be killed…” (Beah, p.126). With these declarations, the reader can clearly comprehend his lack of innocence and empathy. He has become a unfeeling, cold-blooded soldier trained to kill or be killed and survival is his ultimate goal. Later on in the book, the reader is informed of the barbaric scene that takes place in Benin Home, a rehabilitation center. When Ishmael arrives at this site, he ruthlessly interrogates a couple of his housemates “I took out my grenade and put my fingers inside the pin. 'Do you boys want this to be your last meal, or do you want to answer his question?”(Beah, p.133). Undoubtedly, this is not normal behavior for a 15-year old and when he displays this conduct, it can be unquestionably said that Ishmael has lost all sense of innocence and emotion. In this section of his story, Ishmael is threatening to kill boys his own age, which shows how deviated he has become from his original character and sense. Both of these examples verify that Ishmael Beah in nowhere near the innocent, rap-enthusiast and family loving boy he once was. The child that was Ishmael Beah is now dead, and in his place stands a cold-hearted

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.

Throughout the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael faces a plentiful amount of challenges and conflicts. In the book there are four main conflicts that Ishmael faces and overcomes. These conflicts include Ishmael running away from the war, his family, and his friends, Ishmael's entire family dying and him becoming a soldier at the age of 13, Ishmael going through rehabilitation, and Ishmael trying to move to a safer area when war meets Freetown.

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

In the book, A Long Way Gone, there is an array of different tones. The author uses them to shine light on the central theme and main idea of the story. The tone is important because it emphasizes the emotion of the text and the story being told. The author, Ishmael Beah, who is also the main character in the book has had a rough life. He grew up in the city of Mattru Jong, which is in the country of Sierra Leone. War had swept over the land changing everything and everyone. Beah was forced into being a child soldier at the age of twelve. By looking at the book, A Long Way Gone, one can see that Beah was put through things that no person should go through and it has shaped his entire world, with death, loss, and pain.

Ishmael Beah's memoir "a Long Way Gone" is a true story about his early life and his experience in the war in Sierra Leone as a child soldier. There are many symbols, figures of speech and images used in Beah's memoir. Interchangeably, there are relationships between all three of these terms in the book. In "a Long Way Gone" Symbolism, Images and figures of speech convey a very moody message to the reader, based upon what they are reading. These literary building blocks helped shape the memoir and keep the reader engaged throughout it.

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

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.

In this essay I’m going to be discussing three themes from the novel A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah. The three themes I am going to be talking about are survival, family, and war. There are many themes in this novel, but I believe these are the three most important ones. I will explain each theme, give quotes from the book showing the theme and then explain how they are significant and show the theme.

Decency fades like dust in the wind of the modern era of our world. Through the lense of Ishmael Beah we get to see the inhumanities done in South African culture. Beah is taken as a young boy and it placed in the army. Through all the journeys Beah goes through he ends up living the new york city and lives a life full of actions that are meant to please others and help the people suffering in the horrible South African conditions. When identifying and analyzing the theme in A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier it is shown that the there is a lack of innocence and morality amongst the modern civilizations in this day and age. Beah's only way to survive was to choose to kill, expect the worst, or learn to erase the pain and sorrow that was inflicted upon him. He learned to blur out the obvious things that were put in front of him.

Imagine you hear gunshots echoing through the woods. You begin to see soldiers running towards you with overwhelming aggression. You begin to run as fast as you can and flee from the terrifying men. A Long Way Gone , written by Ishmael Beah is a story that was written of the author's experiences in the Sierra Leone civil war. Ishmael was constantly faced with dangers and the terrors that came from this civil war. Ishmael begins happy with his family but by the end he has lost his family and has the traumatic experience of being a child soldier. In A Long Way Gone the consequences of war shown include, a change in native culture, loss of family, and death and injury to innocent people. These consequences were shown throughout the story and the civil war.

11) Q: Is it surprising that Beah spends a relatively small portion of the book describing his time as a soldier in the war? Why might he have decided to devote much more time to his life before and after his time in the army?