A Short Story : A Biography Of Ishmael Beah

Long Way Gone are several stories from Ishmael’s village. They play a very important key role

Ishmael acts like all the older soldiers by doing drugs, watching war movies and never sleeping just like they do. He acts this new way only because of who he’s surrounded and influenced by. Now in the novel, Ishmael’s character is changing completely. From a considerate, playful, young child; he’s now a ruthless, animal-like killing machine for the government

Throughout the novel, Ishmael and his friends begin to those their humanity and become completely different individuals because of their exposure to the war. The

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

The more people Ishmael loses, the less he has to fight for- the less he has to hope for. Upon finding his family’s ashes, Ishmael is enraged- not hopeless. Ishmael’s hope is alive, but shrinking as Gasemu indicates when he says, “Your forehead used to glow naturally when you were just a child … We thought it was because you were happy all the time. Your mother said you even smiled when you slept. But when you started your troublesomeness and were angry, your forehead glowed even more…And here you are, it isn’t shining anymore,” (Beah 92). Ishmael’s forehead did not glow because he was mad or sad or embarrassed or happy. Ishmael’s forehead glowed because he was passionate and hopeful. The angrier he got when he was younger, the more his forehead glowed seeing as he believed in his anger. Despite the fact that his hope shrank when he was faced with the death of his family, the threat of the rebels, and the fear of dying, these events did not destroy Ishmael’s hope- Ismael’s hope begins its descent to nothingness when he becomes a child soldier and, consequently, a drug addict. When Ishmael no longer mourns the death of human life, his hope is lost. When Ishmael cannot care less if he lives or dies, his hope is lost. When he would rather continue killing as

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

Beah had never a home, he had never a place where he went and felt safe. Ishmael was never loved, he was just used for the benefit of others. He had to survive all the physical and emotional pain. Beah overcame the psychological problems that the war left him and learned how to regain his humanity that the army had taken from him. Ishmael never lost hope, he always looked forward for a better future. He kept having hope even when he was brainwashed by the army and was forced to do bad things. He was always hoping to survive. Despite what Ishmael lived through, he regained his humanity by the help of others but mostly by his perseverance and personal strength he could vanquish his killing thoughts and become a confident person

My life I never really tell because i never really tell about it much since not many people ask what i deal with. It just feels like I’m sometimes in a state of fragile peace and happiness just like Beah was in his book A long Way Gone.The story is about a young boy who was forever changed by the civil war that plagued his country in his youth, which lead him on a journey thru the war torn nation of Sierra Leone in hopes of reuniting with his family, and when that couldn’t be achieved his frustration and anger pushed him to survival almost as a villain with massive hatred for the hero in a comic book. Beah recounts how he was able to survive while seeing death, killing others and feeling no remorse in a time of crisis for his enemy. The country eventually decided to rehabilitate those children soldiers and Ishmael ends up being one of those children that eventually is lucky enough to escape this madness, only for the captial city of Sierra Leone, Freetown to be plunged into darkness once more with a brutal civil war that lead him back to New York City to begin a safe life once more. My story seems to have a similar but smaller battles that left me in a battered mental state scared by my past.

What would Ishmael’s grandfather give him and his brother? Explain how this impacted him. What if we had this, how would it impact the world?

In the story “A long way Gone by Ishmael Beah” Ishmael first character is innocent and childlike in the beginning of the novel. His innocence and childlike character is a significant role of characterization. Ishmael’s symbol of innocence is the moon, which is constantly being brought you into the story. “Some nights I saw the head of a man in the room...it pleases me to know that part of my childhood is still embedded with me.” It made him happy that he knew he still had his innocence and childlike manner for picturing a man as the moon. In the beginning of the novel he also is a child who has a childlike manner.“We sat together on the stoop and briefly talked about our childhood pranks...we had dancing at talent shows, practicing new dances, playing soccer until we couldn't see the ball.” The quote shows that he was a young boy who liked playing with friends and having fun. In the beginning of the novel Ishmael is innocent but once war comes around him, he changes.

I know I can’t even imagine what type of problem that these kid soldiers had to overcome not just to survive but to become normal people again. Although things didn’t go as well as Ishmael Beah planned for his life. I was amazed by his courage and inspired that someone who could go through all that crazy stuff and fight through it to still be successful. I think you should read the book also it’s a good reminder that if he can go from kid soldier to a New York author then our possibilities are limitless

A final theme tells us when everything else disappears, there is always love. Ishmael learns this the hard way. He has a kind of family unit with the soldiers that actually carries over into the love and friendship between him and Alhaji. Then, there is the love of Uncle Tommy and his family and their willingness to make Ishmael a son and a brother. Finally, there is the love of people like Esther and Laura who accept him unconditionally and welcome him into their homes when he most needed help and love.

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

The author has also used the method of narration in his book where he provides the reader with a timeline of events starting from the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)