A Long Way Gone Summary

Ishamael Beah’s resilience allowed him to be adaptable to many different and difficult situations. In the beginning of the book Ishmael and his friends decide to go to Mattru Jong for a talent show. As they begin to go there they hear that the war has hit the mining areas. Ishmael and his friends knew that they may never be able to find their families again. Ishmael adapted very quickly and never gave up on trying to find them. “For more than three hours, we stayed at the Wharf, anxiously waiting and expecting to see our families or to talk to someone who had seen them.” (Beah 10) They never heard any news of them. Ishmael, Junior, Talloi begin to travel back saying goodbye to their friends. Ismael and they boys saw their first look, at what the war was about. They saw blood everywhere, parents carrying their dead children and people in pain. As Ismael, Junior and Talloi traveled

The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This

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

The second part of the book takes an uncompromising look at the difficulties this entailed for the boy soldier and his peers, who for a long time resist the most determined efforts to restore their humanity, their anger at having been taken from their family. Children are meant to be protected from violence and war. They are extremely vulnerable both physically and psychologically, to abuse and misguidance. They are easily influenced by those around them because they are young and incapable of forming independent opinions. Adult soldiers at Ishmael’s base were snorting brown brown and smoking marijuana, Ishmael, as naive as any child would be, was influenced by these people and looked up to the adults as role model and leader and so he began to do it as well. “I took turns at the guarding posts around the village, smoking marijuana and sniffing brown brown” The job of a soldier is to fight wars, to take lives, to kill if not be killed. If these children are taught hatred

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.

Ishmael has to run from village to village, through forests, or extremely hot sand to escape the constant danger of the RUF. When he was first starting to run away, he was with his brothers, later on he was by himself, and throughout the rest of his running following him into war was past time acquaintances that now became his friends. Him and his new friends became severely injured at one point, and they experienced a death amongst themselves with no certain cause other than exceeding anxiety. In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael states, “Each time I lifted my feet, the veins in them tightened and I felt the sand particles digging into my bleeding soles.” This occurs when Ishmael and his friends are forced out by a village that took their shoes, and the boys were forced to walk on the 120 degrees hot sand. Speaking of villages punishing the boys, there were many difficulties when the new friends would stop at different villages for food or rest. Due to the chaos of war, many villages thought the boys were sometimes rebels, spies, killers, or thieves, making the

The story takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1973. The epidemic hits the city in the late summer months and lasts until December. Mattie lives with with her mother and grandfather above a coffeehouse her family owns. There is little medical knowledge at the time which leads to little control over the virus. They are many africans living free in Philadelphia at the time also. There are also many mentions of the Free African Society.

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

Then, the boys were caught by a group of guarding villagers and they were sent to the chief of the village. When the chief is decides to drown the boys, the rap tape in Ishmael's pocket leads them to discover that they aren't a threat and only innocent boys. The boys stayed in Kamator for one month until it was finally attacked. Ishmael and his brother were seperated and never seen him again even his friends. Surviving alone in the forest for a month, Ishmael was able to find the exit of the forest and joins a group other boys. When the boys reach seashore, they were caught by fishermen. The fishermen gave the boys shoes because of their severe burn feet on the hot sand. After two weeks, the villagers caught the boys and when the chief saw Ishmael's rap cassette, they allows them to leave. When they are travelling to the next village, Saidu became sick and quiet. When they boys arrived, A woman was able to tell Ishmael about his family in the next village. The next day, Saidu died at night and he was givena funeral arrangements and Ishmael and the other boys became sad because of their friend's sudden death. After Saidu's death, they head to the next village looking forward seeing their families. They came across Gasemu and walk with him, but when they reached the village, the rebels were already attacking and the boys were hiding. Then, the rebels were able to hear them and Gasemu and the boys began to run while the

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

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

A Long Way gone is a memoir about Ishmael Beah’s life before and after he was a child soldier. It took a toll on his life when his village was invaded by the rebel soldiers. His family was taken his mom and his little brother everything he had and known was ripped from his reach. Ishmael was a good kid and was kind because of the people around him his community shaped into the person he was when he lived there. He had a good place and had been surround by good people all of his life so it was easy for him to be happy just like the people around him.

Looking closer at the facts, his family did die in an unfortunate situation. Plus he didn’t even get to see them after leaving for Mattru Jong the first time around. As he traveled with a new group of friends, he receives encouraging news, which motivate him to keep going; his family could be alive and waiting in the next town. The thing is, as he reaches closer to Yele, he finds out they actually died in rebel attacks. “I have looked around for them, but I can’t see them anywhere,” Gasemu said. (Beah, pg. 119) The above proves how Ishmael Beah was completely left alone in his life, thus did not have luck. Furthermore, he faces such an unfortunate situation for a kid his age and is forced to make a life-changing decision. Beah gets recruited by the Sierra Leonean military, with the purpose of fighting in an interminable and extensive war. As he traveled throughout the many towns, “We must have been walking for days, I do not really remember, when suddenly two men put us at gunpoint and motioned, with their guns, for us to come closer. (Beah, pg. 124) Beah is then taken to a soldier compound, whereas the days pass, he gets trained to be a soldier. The thing is, he is so unfortunate, that there is no escape from the current situation. Ishmael is forced to choose between fighting along with them, or leaving along with the chance of getting killed. This demonstrates how Ishmael was

Ishmael is living with haunted memories of his past. His new life without any war zone or hostility, is unfamiliar with him as was always looking over his shoulder during his time in Sierra Leone. This is causing disruption to his life and his identity due to vivid dreams constantly returning to him. “One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life.

The main character in this book would be the author and narrator, Ishmael Bah. At the beginning of the story Ishmael is a regular child in the country of Sierra Leone. As the story progresses Ishmael loses his humanity but over time regains it when helped by UNICEF. This is evident in the line, “We always thought it was because you were happy all the time.” This line describes Ishmael before he is recruited to be a soldier in the civil war of his country. After being recruited, Ishmael quickly changes and his happiness begins to wither down. This is shown in the line, “I imagined capturing several rebels at once, locking them inside a house, sprinkling gasoline on it, and tossing a match. We watch it burn and I laugh.” This