Analysis Of 'A Long Way Gone : Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier'

Within the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien writes about a story that Mitchell Sanders recounts to be true. The surrealist part is when Sanders talks about how they heard noises within the forests of Nam. Sanders says, “...but after a while they start hearing -you won’t believe this- they hear chamber music… Then after a while they hear gook opera and a glee club…” (Pg. 71). When he says this he is really adding details to pad the story up. Like when Sanders say, “The whole country. Vietnam. The place talks. It talks. Understand? Nam - it truly talks.” (Pg. 71). He means to say that he added those things that they heard because there were sounds they heard that couldn’t be explained. Later on he says that those things they heard

In “how to tell a true war story” Tim o Brien tells some stories of war and tries to explain why and how these stories are true. O Brien come up with his own guidelines for what a true war story should contain for it to be true if it contains other things that what he mentions it is not true even if it happened. According to O Brien “a true war story is never moral” (Brien 1), “does not instruct, nor encourage virtue” (Brien 1), does not restrain men from doing the things they have always done” (Brien 1) in addition O Brien continues to unfold the requirements for labeling a story true and he even says “ if you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth” (Brien 2) meaning that a true story could contain some type of obscenity

It allowed me to connect with the author’s thoughts and thoroughly understand the story or novel. Because of this, it caused me to enjoy reading, which I was not particularly fond of before.

“Soldier’s Home” is a story by Ernest Hemingway that symbolizes how a World War 1 veteran is faced with many difficulties when transitioning into society after war. Real life finds its way into Hemingway’s writing often mirroring some of his own challenges giving the reader a sense of familiarity. Most notably, Hemingway’s description of getting used to a life without the backdrop of war in “Soldier’s Home” shows credibility, most likely from his own experience of returning home from the battlefield.

What, would you say, is the secret to keeping your reader hooked throughout the book?

Nowadays, cross-cultural communication is one of the keys to survive in this society. It plays an important role in our society. The book, A long way gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier, describes several cross cultural issues. This book is based on the true story of Ishamel Beah, who was solder in Republic of Sierra Leone. During his life time, he face a number of cultural shocks and tried to adapt each situation. Through story of his life, we can recognize some cultural differences and similarities between his central culture, Sierra Leon, and other individuals/groups. Thus, in this essay, I would like to discuss how are cultural differences and similarities between Ishamel’s culture and other cultures revealed. There are three main points; cultural differences shows cultural conflict and cultural integration, and cultural similarities reflects the Americanization.

A prominent theme in A Long Way Gone is about the loss of innocence from the involvement in the war. A Long Way Gone is the memoir of a young boy, Ishmael Beah, wanders in Sierra Leone who struggles for survival. Hoping to survive, he ended up raiding villages from the rebels and killing everyone. One theme in A long Way Gone is that war give innocent people the lust for revenge, destroys childhood and war became part of their daily life.

     According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficult to fully describe a war using human language, Spielberg ended up revising his stories to make sense out of it. Spielberg included parts that did not occur or exclude parts that did occur in order to make their stories seem more credible. According

Throughout Tim O'Brien's, “How to Tell a True War Story”, the concept of truth and how one tells a “true” war story is discussed. Several factors contribute to the “truth” of the stories the soldiers told; the madness of the war, the civilians back home who didn't experience war or understand that it was hell, and the indescribable ways the soldiers felt. O'Brien explains that people willingly accept the facts of what happened during a war but, what they don’t consider is the deception of these facts that change through people’s stories. All of these factors combined caused the soldiers to react to certain situations and tell stories differently. O’Brien’s stories characterize that “truth” isn’t always a straightforward concept; and that it can be revealed in many ways. It can be the narrator’s intention, to provide the truth but the person listening might find a different truth to the story.

A kid separated from his family and put into a war front at the age of 12 change this kids life forever. In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider, Ishmael Beah was put through a lot during the cold war in Sierra Leone, and he was given drugs and pills to keep his energy to fight in the war and he was turned into a killer. There where lots of people killed and torture and Beah was just a kid and he was ver frightened and confused about everything. Also Beah and his friends travel around the country for years trying to survive the war and figure out ways to find there way to safety. The theme of the book is no matter what don't give up on yourself because if you give up on yourself your already bound for failure and the during the hole story Beah used resilience to keep on going and not give up.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be in the center of a war as an adolescent or how the people who experienced war feel after it all ends? Well, Ishmael Beah is an activist and writer, but also was a child soldier in a war in Sierra Leone. He didn't have a choice other than to join the army if he wanted to survive. Due to the war in Sierra Leone, Beah faced many hardships that impacted his life in a negative way.

Ishmael Beah, A survivor     Wilma Rudolph, a famous track and field Olympic runner and book writer once said, “Never underestimate the power of dream and the influence of hum spirits. We are all the same nation: The potential of greatness lives in within each of us.” The novel a long way gone memoirs of a Boy Soldier, an autobiography written by Ishmael Beah, tells a story about himself and the life he was forced to live as a boy soldier. He tells us how he was brainwashed and how his anger was influencing him to kill.

“The English are fools!” Sprawled upon a sign hoisted above the German trenches. A hiss escaped behind me, ready to order gas masks I was surprised to find one of the senior commanders quietly laughing to himself. “ Is something funny sir?” I queried as he struggled to control himself. Regaining composure, he turned my shoulders to face the German trenches speaking to me quietly, “James, look out…. can’t you see the death and destruction? In this hopeless mess they try to provoke us with silly signs.” Leaving me with those words to ponder my senior officer disappeared further into the trench. Silly sign it may be, I ordered it shot down. Rifle shots made quick work of it, but not before one of the more junior members became over eager and exposed himself.

The story I found most interesting and decided to write about is Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home.” Hemingway writes a bizarre story depicting the cruel effects of war. War is the evilest event/element any human being can unfortunately be exposed to. The chaos and carnage which come as a result of these sometimes-senseless wars can cause traumatic and dark memories which can linger around in a person’s mind, altering their perspective for the rest of their lives. Hemingway certainly does a magnificent job in illuminating those exact effects throughout the story.

There are many different ways to attracting a person to a book, and one may ask what those different ways might be. Although an author can attract a reader based on the title of a book, or the opening sentence, but a good book uses literary devices such as figurative language, diction, syntax and much more which is all based off of style. In the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, style is used throughout the whole book and contains on a lot of details which makes the novel both compelling and pleasurable to read.