Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

“When I was seven I had an answer to this question that made sense to me….if I was the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament” (Beah 218). A Long Way Gone is a memoir of a child soldier who is the author himself Ishmael Beah. Beah around the ages of twelve to thirteen grew up in Sierra Leone during its civil war. During his story, Beah talks in a tone that is straight to the point, however many devices help the reader imagine his loss of innocence. Beah uses a series of flashbacks, symbols and motifs to illustrate his loss to his readers.

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.

While being face to face with war, Ishmael illustrates what he, as well as his life, has become, “My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector and my rule was to kill or be killed…” (Beah, p.126). With these declarations, the reader can clearly comprehend his lack of innocence and empathy. He has become a unfeeling, cold-blooded soldier trained to kill or be killed and survival is his ultimate goal. Later on in the book, the reader is informed of the barbaric scene that takes place in Benin Home, a rehabilitation center. When Ishmael arrives at this site, he ruthlessly interrogates a couple of his housemates “I took out my grenade and put my fingers inside the pin. 'Do you boys want this to be your last meal, or do you want to answer his question?”(Beah, p.133). Undoubtedly, this is not normal behavior for a 15-year old and when he displays this conduct, it can be unquestionably said that Ishmael has lost all sense of innocence and emotion. In this section of his story, Ishmael is threatening to kill boys his own age, which shows how deviated he has become from his original character and sense. Both of these examples verify that Ishmael Beah in nowhere near the innocent, rap-enthusiast and family loving boy he once was. The child that was Ishmael Beah is now dead, and in his place stands a cold-hearted

”At first she just listened to me, and then gradually started asking questions to make me talk about the lives I had lived….‘None of these things are your fault,’ she would always say…I heard that phrase from every staff member--and frankly I had always hated it--I began that day to believe it.(164)” Ishmael Beah was a 12-year-old boy living in Sierra Leone at the beginning of the book. Sierra Leone was having a war which concluded too many people dying, and running trying to survive. Ishmael Beah joined the war from being 13 years old to 15 years old, he was drugged to have more energy and brainwashed to have the mindset to kill. Ishmael Beah uses characterization in order to show how Ishmael struggles to change from a child trying to survive, to a drugged ruthless soldier who must recover in rehabilitation.

Ishmael Beah is described as a pre-teen, with a love of rap and hip-hop music. He finishes as a drug-addicted killing machine, out avenging the death of his entire family. Before being rescued by a United Nations Program, and eventually fleeing to New York for rehabilitation, it is a tragic and harrowing tale that gives substance to the term ‘Boy Soldier’, that isn’t really understood in most cases. Ishmael gives a gentle portrayal of his life, before the war reached his small village and forever changed his life. Abruptly he becomes fugitive fleeing for his life and eventually into a corrupted teen.

Ishmael Beah was at the age of thirteen when his childhood and innocence was taken from him. For example, Beah says “My childhood had gone without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen”(30). It happened so quickly. He was frantic with worry. Beah was forced to join the Sierra Leone military. It was not until later he himself started to believe he has lost his innocence. At this young age he was killing the rebels that traumatized him purely to seek revenge and to survive. His hate for the rebels was very strong, “Whenever I looked at the rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many

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.

what had happened in the war." (Beah, 163). Ishmael Beah's rap cassette tapes had a huge impact on his life and how he

“I have been rehabilitated now, so don’t be afraid of me. I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child” (Beah 199). Ishmael Beah had a long road to rehabilitate but he was able to rehabilitate because he had vital forces shaping him. In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, a long way gone, Ishmael was a child soldier in Sierra Leone. He wrote a memoir sharing his experiences of being a child soldier and of him rehabilitation. During 1991 to 2002 there was a vicious civil war going on in the western African country of Sierra Leone between the RUF rebels and the government forces. Ishmael Beah was a young 10-year-old boy who lived in a small village, he liked rap music and dancing hip hop with his friends. Ishmael was never affected by the war until one day when

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

Ishmael Beah is described as a pre-teen, with a love of rap and hip-hop music. He finishes as a drug-addicted killing machine, out avenging the death of his entire family. Before being rescued by a United Nations Program, and eventually fleeing to New York for rehabilitation, it is a tragic and harrowing tale that gives substance to the term ‘Boy Soldier’, that isn’t really understood in most cases. Ishmael gives a gentle portrayal of his life, before the war reached his small village and forever changed his life. Abruptly he becomes fugitive fleeing for his life and eventually into a corrupted teen.

Ishmael Beah: The author and narrator of this novel shares his experience when he was a child soldier for Sierra Leone Armed Services during the civil war. Before the war, he spent most of his time with his friends, rapping along with his cassette tapes, enjoying

“Things will change rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything” (Beah p.29). Long way gone is about the life of Ishmael Beah in which he experienced difficult tasks during a civil war and how it reshaped his life. “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” (Beah p.69) I recommend reading this book because it is based on real life events, it captures your attention and gives you a life lesson.

When Ishmael had to run away to find safety, he stated, “I walked for two days straight without sleeping. I stopped only at streams to drink water. I felt as if somebody was after me” (Beah 47). Ishmael had to find a way to survive that he is not normally used to. He has to drink any water he can find, and he can never rest because he feels as if somebody will find him and hurt him. He feels this way because the rebels from the war have killed many people just like him all over the continent and right in front of his eyes. Also, Ishmael began to feel alone when he stated, “It was during the attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior, my older brother” (Beah 43). The war has not only made him have a new lifestyle, but it also took away many people that he loved away from him. During the first attack on his own village he lost his family because they all ran in different directions and never found each other again. Ishmael and his older brother, Junior, were able to stick together, but another village was attacked and they lost each other. Now Ishmael was alone and had to fight for himself with no one to guide him. Ishmael was a victim because the war caused many events to occur that affected Ishmael’s