A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

The title of this story is A Long Way Gone, it is a historical memoir written by Ishmael Beah. This story was published on February 15th 2007 by Sarah Crichton Books.

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

Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A long Way Gone, is very descriptive and has a very effective way of painting a picture in the reader’s mind of what he went through as a boy soldier. Throughout the memoir, Beah used quite a few statements that impacted me emotionally, on a personal level. His vivid detail, word choice and how personal, yet professional he kept his writing led me to understand how exactly the war affected him, and everyone else who lived, and lives, in Sierra Leone.

Beah shows how poor leadership could have been the cause of war. Africa suffers from human rights violations which characterize the era of the civil war (Correa - Velez, Nardone, Knoetze 143). The civil war in Sierra Leone brought abrupt changes to children's lives due to the power of the Sierra Leone government. Beah goes on to say that “sometimes we were asked to leave for the war in the middle of the movie. We would come back hours later after killing many people and continue the movie as if we had just returned from intermission. We were always either at the front lines, watching a war movie, or doing drugs. There was no time to be alone or to think” (Beah 124). Beah explains that soldiers freedoms were taken away as they were asked to “leave” for combat often. This shows the abuse of power of the government of Sierra Leone as they revoked the freedoms of its citizens for war. Many believe that due to corrupt governance, child soldiers were not given the choice or option to become a soldier (Spencer 222). Beah finds that it’s “…not easy being a soldier, but we just had to do it” (Beah 199). Beah discusses how he did not have any decision in “being a soldier” and is instead forced to. He further explains how he has to force himself to survive. Throughout the novel, Beah

The following citation shows that Beah has to watch the rebels not only destroy the village but destroy lives, and families which gives another reason for Beah for his actions he commits. “According to the teachers, the rebels had attacked the mining areas in the afternoon. The sudden outburst of gunfire had caused people to run for their lives in different directions. Fathers had come running from their workplaces, only to stand in front of their empty houses with no indication of where their families had gone. Mothers wept as they ran toward schools, rivers, and water taps to look for their children. Children ran home to look for parents who were wandering the streets in search of them. And as the gunfire intensified,people gave up looking for their loved ones and ran out of town” (Beah 9). This gives the readers a image of what happened when the rebels entered his village and attack them. As the families were going in different ways and people were killed and houses were set on fire this gives another reason for Beah’s actions since he had to watch something that he loved so much and he grew up knowing as home fall apart so

(Beah 23) He describes how intimidating and alarming each bullet was and how horrific each shot exploded throughout his being. But not only did Beah experience war as a child, he also lost his childhood and innocence. “My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector and my rule was to kill or be killed… I felt no pity for anyone. My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen.”

In the beginning, Beah states that he was first, “touched by war at the age of 12” (Beah 6). This leads Beah and his brother Junior to take refuge to neighboring villages to further extend their chances of not being captured from the barbarous rebel army, RUF (Revolutionary United Front). While traveling to various villages and having to escape from the rebel army, Beah’s flashback to his Brother Junior’s stone skipping lesson allows the reader to understand how much Junior cares for his little brother, “Junior gave me his bucket, took my empty one, and returned to the river, when he came home, the first thing he did was ask me if I was hurt from falling” (Beah 39). This memory is brought to remembrance to comfort and console Beah when traveling with Junior, and call upon happier times with his brother to try and take his mind off the war. Further in the story, a village Beah and his brother Junior were taken refuge in

Ishmael Beah was a child of war in Sierra Leone. His memoir retells his experiences being in the Sierra Leone army. At just twelve years old, Ishmael Beah’s homeland was infested with Foday Sankoh’s brutal army, who would stop at nothing to take control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines. Beah then comes to explain his experience as a soldier and his killing spree. Although some may argue that his experiences are too graphic, William Boyd hints that readers should read Beah’s memoir.

He was only a child still learning how to cope with his life but ended up doing it the wrong way too. The war had created victims by scaring them out of their homes to avoid dying and has also killed friends and family, leaving others who are left alive traumatized. This had also left victimizers who, because their loved ones had passed, seek for revenge and go off killing whoever stands in their way. Then becoming unsatisfied they have become the monster they had desperately tried to kill. War changes people just like Ishmael Beah, this event changed his life forever and is now living somewhere and doing things he could have never dream of as a child. War can affect anyone no matter where they are, for Beah it has affected his whole life and there are few who will not fully realize what war can do to a person until they have been put in the shoes of their

“Finally, we were approaching the village where seeing our families was actually a possibility” (p.91). Banana and coffee trees replaced the forest and that path appeared. On the side of the banana’s farm they saw a man, but couldn’t see his face. Kanei try to talk to him, and when the men got closer to them Beah realize he knows his face. Although the men was a lot skinnier now and had more wrinkles on his face, he knew him from his home town. The man recognized Beah as well, and asked them to help him carry bananas back to the village. While helping him, he told Beah that his whole family was waiting for him in the village.That Junior had gone looking for him but came back few days ago and now they were just waiting to hear something from him. Beah got impatient and just wanted to get to the village, he walked in front of everyone and got mad when they stopped for breaks. As they were going down hill they started to heat gunshots, dogs barking and people screaming. They dropped the bananas and run so they will not be at the open hill side. When they saw the heavy smoke coming up from the houses they understand, the rebels had arrived. Beah run to the village finding nothing but fire and bullet shells covering the ground. He became so angry, missing his family by seconds, seconds when he helped Gasemu taking to bananas, seconds that they took those breaks. Again, somehow, Beah manage to stay alive, those seconds that he missed his family were those seconds that saved him. Letting him live longer, and managing to get to a safe village. The one that soon will recruit him to be a boy soldier and change his life

Being only about twelve years old and getting separated from your own family has to be so hard for a child. They feel as though they have lost who they always have looked up to. They don’t have anyone to guide and mentor them to make the right choices in life. This is what had happened to Beah. He basically lost his functioning ability and wasn’t able to tell the difference between right and wrong. After being recruited as a child soldier, his whole innocence left him. He became a totally changed person. Ishmael started taking drugs and killed people left and right. After getting so addicted to the drugs, he thought that everything that he was doing was great. The only person he could look up to now was the commander of the army. The commander gave the children such huge lectures on how the rebels are horrible, and they are the reason for all of this. Children like Beah start getting inspired and think that killing is what’s right for all the torture

The battle with maintaining innocence is a focal theme introduced in Beah’s memoirs by using flashbacks, symbolism, and natural motifs. The first period of Beah’s memoir explores how he fought to stay alive before becoming a child soldier. His rap cassette symbolizes his innocence to a group of voluntary village guards, who question he and his friend’s status in the war, as they attempt to bypass the village. The rap cassette with the help of a Mattru Jong regular talent show attendee’s voucher is able to convince the group of guards to release the boys (Beah, 2007, P38). Jumping to the final period of his memoir, the tape and his deep affection for

Just as many stories, both action and adventure, or comedy and crime, Beah’s narrative is created through his personal journey. In his journey he encounters many events and people. Out of those events are the negative and the positive ones. Thus, his journey revolves around the abstract idea of war and how neither him or his fellow villagers would come to a general understanding of what the refugees migrating to their village had perceived because it was too terrific and unpredictable. The three major events that took place in the main character’s life was changing from innocent young boy, to savage solider and again to a normal adult.

He is happy, not knowing the fate that would become of his village soon. He stays with his friends most of the time, hanging out and listening to rap music, which confuses him. Beah isn’t sure how the American rappers can speak English so fast, and so well. The rap music will act as a proof of innocence later in the book, such as when the boys are mistaken for rebels at villages and captured. When Beah is able to show the rap cassettes the elders, the village lets the boys go. As soon as the civil war started, Beah was affected greatly in ways that would change the way he thinks. He has to run and hide to survive, and cannot risk being caught by the rebels, because he has seen what they have done; then he was captured by rebels, he was about to die and felt fear. Beah takes refuge in various villages, saying afterwards that “I do not know the names of [those] that sheltered and provided me food during those times,” (Beah 48) and he thanks them if he is able to. He learns to steal only when necessary, and his personality goes from being an innocent, happy boy to a young man that need to fend for himself in the wild. After being separated from his brother and friends, he learns about solitude and

In conclusion, throughout Beah emotional journey one key component is music for the survival, loneliness, and rehabilitation of Beah. Without music Beah most likely would have returned to the front lines of the war. Music helped Beah survive the early stages of his journey. Without music, Beah would have fallen prey to the dark thoughts of the war sooner. Without his family and music, Beah hit the lowest point, but it became a beacon pulling Beah from a dark place. Music gave Beah connections to new friends and relatives, even though it brought sad memories of his previous life. Beah love for music was a key component for his survival of those horrible experiences and most likely to this date it still is. (Beah, 2007, p. 5-218)