A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah: Personal Analysis

Ishmael Beah, the author of the memoir A Long Way Gone, is a twelve-year old boy who is trapped inside a war zone in Sierra Leone, Africa. When his home town, Mattru Jong is attacked by “the rebels,” he is separated from his family and is forced to run from everything he once loved. Ishmael flees from town to town with other teenagers who face the same problems, trying to survive and escaping attacks from villagers. Beah writes, “People were terrified of boys our age. Some had heard rumors about young boys being forced by rebels to kill their families and burn their villages,” (Beah 37). At such a young age Ishmael was trying to survive off of what he had; sometimes he went days without food. Ishmael was deprived of more than just his clothing.

War is devastating and tragic. It affects the daily lives of the people that are involved in the war. In the excerpt from, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, it displays a man who is dreaming about war. When the man wakes up, he lays sweating on the ground, remembering the painful memories that the dream has brought. In the end, the man realizes that from now on he will have to live in three worlds; his dreams, the experience of his new life, and memories from the past. Meanwhile, in the image, “In Times of War” by The New York Times, there is an angel on a cloud looking over the dreadful war. Then the angel walks away because the view of people dying makes it sick. The theme of the excerpt A Long Way Gone, and the image, “In Times of War,” is that the war brings death, seriously injured, and psychologically broken people.

Hope enables people to move on by providing the thought that maybe tomorrow’s events will be better than today’s. Hope is a theme that remains constant in every part of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Ishmael begins the novel optimistic, believing he will find his family again. This optimism is later lost when Ishmael is recruited by the army to fight against the rebels, causing him to become addicted to drugs and the thrill of killing. Three years after his recruitment, Ishmael is rescued by UNICEF-a group dedicated to rehabilitating child soldiers. During his rehabilitation, Ishmael discovers hope once more by relearning how to trust, love, and have the will to survive. The presence of hope throughout A Long Way Gone enables Ishmael to

In the memoir, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, and the film The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, there is a lot to do with poverty, loss of family and independence. Only in different ways. Ishmael is on his own and has to find his own food, water and shelter along with a few friends. The boys are all young but were thrown into the real world very quickly and unexpectedly. Mister and Pete have their mothers, but it does not matter as of the mothers do not seem to care for their children as much as they should. Mister and Pete come home to rarely any food at all, no money and are scared of one day, no shelter. Mister has to take charge in his home as a result of his mother being a drug addict and does not try to help, just like Ishmael had to be his own person by reason of the believed loss of his family.

Ishmael is about a young scientist that can telepathically speak with a gorilla named Ishmael who will soon to be the teacher. Ishmael taught himself his education when he was able to talk to his owner telepathically to get him books. Ishmael helps the narrator realize that we can’t just take whatever we want from the environment and all of its resources. The narrator sees Ishmael for days in a row but ends up having to miss days to see him. He then finds Ishmael at a traveling carnival to finish the lesson they had. The narrator has an idea of buying Ishmael from the carnival owners and finally when he got enough money to buy the gorilla, Ishmael dies.

Bang! Bang! “At that instant several gunshots, which sounded like thunder striking the tin-roofed houses, took over town. The sound of guns was so terrifying it confused everyone” (Beah 23). In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah conveys his amazing journey through war and hardship as a child soldier. Sierra Leone--a country on the western coast of Africa--was embroiled in a bloody civil war in the 1990’s. Battles multiplied as bloodshed abounded and as a child in Sierra Leone Ishmael Beah was forced to survive, find food, and face unimaginable dangers. Running from the battle front was also a routine ordeal. At age 13 Beah was captured by the military and brainwashed into using guns and drugs. As a child soldier he perpetrated and witnessed a great deal of violence. At 15 he was rescued and taken to a rehabilitation center. With time and continual treatment, Beah was able to recover, to some extent, and reconnect with his Uncle Tommy who adopted him. He was later chosen to speak to the United Nations in New York City about his experiences as a child soldier. When he returned to Sierra Leone, war broke out throughout in the city where he lived, causing many deaths including his Uncle Tommy. Eventually Beah escaped Sierra Leone and he managed to reach New York City, where he began a new life. Through Ishmael Beah’s book A Long Way Gone, he conveys a central theme of having to survive, at a young age, through the hardships of war with the use of imagery.

Imagine being stuck in a civil war crisis all by yourself when you were 12 years old. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, an 12 year old , Ishmael Beah, becomes a soldier for the government to fight against the rebels. Beah lost both of his parents during the war. He was eventually put into rehabilitation after two years of fighting. Also, in an biography of John Clem, John joined the army as same age as Beah. John joined the army during the civil war in the United States. These two kids fought in a civil war at an age 12. Anyone can do anything even if you are too young because these two kids fought in a civil war.

In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, a former boy soldier with the Sierra Leone army during its civil war(1991- 2002) with the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), provides an extraordinary and heartbreaking account of the war, his experience as a child soldier and his days at a rehabilitation center. At the age of twelve, when the RUF rebels attack his village named Mogbwemo in Sierro Leone, while he is away with his brother and some friends, his life takes a major twist. While seeking news of his family, Beah and his friends find themselves constantly running and hiding as they desperately strive to survive in a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. During this time, he loses his dear ones and left alone in the

People face and put up a fight everyday against small challenges, big challenges, but they make it through. People face problems such as war, disease, and simple things like losing a game in sports. In the memoirs A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and Night by Elie Wiesel the overall idea expressed are going through many challenges. Both dealt with lots of pain, challenges that got into their way, as well as being around death all the time. The challenges Wiesel and Beah experience while living through war are dealing with pain, overcoming obstacles, and living with death.

I do believe pure evil exists, some people were born to be evil. Most times it isn’t the evil persons fault, it is what they are used to and what they have been taught their whole life. In the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah pure evil does exist. The infamous rebels murder little kids and rape women and they don’t see anything wrong with it. It is their job. The rebels are taught to be evil people. “The rebels were still in my village, angrily cursing and shooting their guns. At some point they pretended to be gone, and someone escaped and went back to the village. They captured him and I could hear them beating him. A few minutes later, gunshots were heard, followed by thick smoke that rose toward the sky. The forest was lit up by the fire that was set in the village” (Beah 35).

Every person in the world goes through some life changing events, whether they are small or big. These changes shape a person's personality. Many life changing events are explained in Ishmael Beah’s book, A Long Way Gone. In the book he goes through many changes throughout his childhood. The story starts during a time in Sierra Leone where rebels are causing terror supposedly trying to make the government “better”. When really they seem to be causing more chaos than help. Ishmael Beah goes through some very life changing events throughout his journey, he manages to get out of these changes but they only seem to make his life worse. Losing the people that mattered most in his life, getting enlisted into the army, and becoming a part of a new

In the book A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, an experienced soldier was writing about his memories of the war. Ishmael was born in Sierra Leone with his family, but one day it all changed. At the age of 12, Beah was taken by the Rebels to kill. His whole mindset changed during the war. However, when the war ended child soldiers were taken to a rehabilitation group, and it did help Ishmael go back the way he used to be before the war.

A Long way Gone, written by Ishmael Beah is a memoir that exposes the reader to a part of the world a majority of people know almost nothing about. An area where life is cut short by conflict and a blatant disregard for the value human life. Where Mothers lose their sons, families lose their homes and people lose their sense of morality. Yet, through these struggles, the resilience of the human spirit and psyche is exposed. Ishmael, through many points in his life was challenged physically, mentally, emotionally and was extremely close to being defeated; changed from the innocent boy he once was into a fiend. Important lessons can be learned from this struggle; Even the worst challenges can be overcome, we should value all that we have because it can all be taken away and also that there is much good and evil in the world we live 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.

Many and many child are forced to become soldiers and is becoming a major issue in the global level. A long way gone is a real life story that was faced by Ishmael Beah who became soldier even if he didn’t want to be. He wrote this book to show people around the world, the suffering that child goes through in the war country. He didn’t have any other choices. Ishmael Beah uses imagery, flashback, and narrative techniques to show the condition of the child soldiers is a major issue going on the world through the memoirs “A long way gone”.