Analysis And Interpretation Of Ishmael Beah

The mother clung to her child and rocked her. She was in too much pain and shock to shed tears.” This excerpt “plagued” Ishmael’s mind as he put it and brought to the boys attention that there was no possible way their families could still be in Mogbwemo and that they needed to return to Mattru Jong for safety. This is definitely a key passage because before this point, Ishmael had no real understanding of the gruesome, violent, and upsetting occurrences that war brought. He had never experienced war in real life and wasn’t used to it at all.

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

To start off, all of Ishmael’s problems stem from his original conflict when he has to run away from the war, his family, and his friends. The origin of the situation was when the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) attacking his home city of Mogbwemo (where his parents were). Later on in the month the rebels attack Mattru Jong (where

The final thing that encapsulated Ishmael Beah that was a symbol in A Long Way Gone was drugs, which

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.

In the book, Ishmael An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Ishmael is a talking gorilla that believes that the world is in a very rough spot. He believes it is due to humans acting like dictators and destroying this world. His reasoning comes from his time with Walter Sokolow; Walter was his owner of a portion of his life. Walter loved the Nazis and decided to give Ishmael unlimited amounts of books, so he could teach him and the knowledge Ishmael gained were truly astonishing. He has an unbiased upon because he has read all types of literature and has looked at all of the different aspects as well as not being human gives his insight on various types of human behaviors, without leaving any out. He believes that we must do better in order

Ishmael Beah is someone who has lived through a lot. As a child, he grew up in Mattru Jong, Sierra Leone. His life was changed when war came into his country. Here, we will be exploring the transition from being an innocent child to becoming a soldier, to being a scarred adult.

The rebels killed his family and friends so he tries to gain revenge since they did destroy other aspects in his life too. Once Ishmael finally got to the village his family was staying, the rebels attack

Ishmael's steady presentation to violence made him encounter serious measures of mental injury that tormented him later on in life. Ishmael experienced bad dreams that profusely agitated him:

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

A significant event was when Ishmael saw dead people. This happened on page thirteen when a man drove his family all the way to Ishamel village with bullet holes everywhere in the van. When he got out of the car he vomited and cried when he noticed that all three of his children and his wife were dead. Ishmael witnessed all of this happen to the man and felt numb and nauseated. He realized that the war is getting closer and closer to the village with him and his family. A whole group of men and women ran through with stray bullets in them and some didn’t notice it until others pointed it out. The last disaster Ishmeal saw was a woman with her shot up baby on her back, but luckily for her the bullet didn’t go through the baby’s body. Now it

The source of this conflict is that Ishmael is struggling to put the past behind him because of all the gruesome acts he’s witnessed and the guilt he feels for what he’s done as a soldier. This is shown through the nightmares Ishmael has every night, his lack of communication with the staff in his rehabilitation center, and his violent outbursts and fear to share stories from his past with Esther. Since he refuses to talk about it, his past experiences cloud his mind day and night. On Pg. 153 Ishmael recalls, “I was quiet for a bit, as I didn’t know what to say and also didn’t trust anyone at this point in my life. I had learned to survive and take care of myself.

This is until a group of rebels is surrounding the village. Then Ishmael is forced to become a soldier and finally fight against the people which he hates the most which is the rebels. While training is the army the Corporal brainwashes him into believing that every single rebel is responsible for the death of his parents and that they are not human. It is because of this reason that Ishmael is more than happy to strap up with an AK-47 and mow down rebels. He thinks that getting revenge on the rebels will make him feel better about losing his family.

Not only did Ishmael have to see this image but he also had to watch his parents burn to death in a village right in front of him. These thoughts and images are a big part of what causes of his

The Rorschach is a projective personality test, which measures personality functioning and assess personality structure. This instrument was published originally in 1921 by Rorschach. Although there were inkblot tests existed prior to the Rorschach, this was the first empirically based system. The assessor interprets the client’s responses to 10 bilaterally symmetrical inkblot images (Groth-Marnat, 2009). The images are ambiguous and non-figurative in nature. Some of the images are in black and white and others contain colors. The Rorschach differs from other projective tests such as Thematic Appercepetion test (TAT). The Rorschach is known as a type of associative or structural technique whereas TAT is a type of construction technique (Campos, 2011). The scoring of responses is done according to the location (or the