Book Analysis: A Long Way Gone

Beah shows how poor leadership could have been the cause of war. Africa suffers from human rights violations which characterize the era of the civil war (Correa - Velez, Nardone, Knoetze 143). The civil war in Sierra Leone brought abrupt changes to children's lives due to the power of the Sierra Leone government. Beah goes on to say that “sometimes we were asked to leave for the war in the middle of the movie. We would come back hours later after killing many people and continue the movie as if we had just returned from intermission. We were always either at the front lines, watching a war movie, or doing drugs. There was no time to be alone or to think” (Beah 124). Beah explains that soldiers freedoms were taken away as they were asked to “leave” for combat often. This shows the abuse of power of the government of Sierra Leone as they revoked the freedoms of its citizens for war. Many believe that due to corrupt governance, child soldiers were not given the choice or option to become a soldier (Spencer 222). Beah finds that it’s “…not easy being a soldier, but we just had to do it” (Beah 199). Beah discusses how he did not have any decision in “being a soldier” and is instead forced to. He further explains how he has to force himself to survive. Throughout the novel, Beah

At first they are children therefore naïve and scared of war. So it becomes a constant process of changing their emotions. Ishmael says “When the soldier stood in front of me, I avoided eye contact, so he straightened my head until my eyes met his. He gave me the gun. I held it in my trembling hands. He then added the magazine, and I shook even more” (109). The war leaders know this so they begin convincing them this is their war by depicting the enemy as the cause of the pain. Lieutenant says to them “‘some of you are here because they have killed your parents or families, others because this is a safe place to be … we need the help of able boys and men to fight these rebels ‘“(106). The kids now feel helpless since they are faced with the ultimatum of either leaving with no rations or fighting for the cause. All things considered they have no choice but to join this war. Now that they have agreed they had to ensure they detested enemies and felt nothing when killing. Lieutenant said “’ they have lost everything that makes them human, they do not deserve to live. That is why we must kill every single one of them…’” (108). ironically, that quote is essentially what the soldiers are doing to the kids verbalized. After a while the army breaks the children and they have lost all of their innocence and all that is left is war hardened. Beah says “I could become angry, yes, begin to visualize

Mark Bowden once wrote, “No one gets behind, you know that.” The story, Black Hawk Down, provides information not only about war, but values in life. Mark Bowden expresses these values throughout the story and they are beneficial for a teenager in high school. In this story, the soldiers experience the true horror of the Battle of Mogadishu and are exposed to combat. Mark Bowden expresses the terrors of this war through the voices of the soldiers on both the American side and the Somali side. Although this book has many unpleasant features, it can educate an American teen valuable lessons. The book, Black Hawk Down, provides academic, social, and nationalistic benefits for a high school student.

To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who

Chapter 21 of Everyone's An Author with Readings (Andrea Lunsford et al.) focuses on the synthetization of ideas from the author and the referenced work. The sources should be properly cited and tie into your argument or idea. In research based areas it's important to have sources that are able to support your stance. The sources can be from the same viewpoint or from another view. The origin of the sources should be credible in their area of expertise or from a credible source. By balancing both the stated argument can be improved. The chapter then gives an example of a Synthesis. War, Cartoons, and Society: Changes in Political Cartoons between World War II and the Iraq War by Julia Landauer is an essay from her second year writing course at Stanford University. It first starts by referencing a relative cartoon then tying it into the effects and uses of such cartoons. However, the chapter cuts it off as the essay starts to bring out the main questions it's analyzing.

In Kevin Clarke’s essay from Speaking of Reading, the greatest obstruction faced by Clarke in learning to read was his own negative mindset and way of looking at himself as a reader. When Clarke was young and had just commenced reading it was evident that he had struggles and even says himself “I was too afraid I wouldn't be able to understand another book” (4). Clarke saying this illustrates that he created his own negative way of thinking by fearing failure and not understanding something which is a major obstacle for him in learning to read. In addition to this, Clarke feels as if he doesn’t have what it takes to be a superior reader and goes on to say “I assumed I was wrong...I don’t trust myself to read it right”

For this book analysis, I read the book A Piece of Cake by Cupcake brown. It is a memoir told by Cupcake about her life. She starts the book at age 11, when she was living a normal and pleasant life with her mother in San Diego. She was quite close to her along with her step father (who, at the time, she thought was her biological father), and her uncle. Then out of nowhere, she finds her mother dead in her room and her life is shaken into disaster. The court system had to turn both her and her brother over to her biological father whom she never met, instead of giving her to the man she was raised by. Her father then sent her to a foster home where she was raped and beaten constantly. When she

As previously stated briefly, Beah makes a clear main argument that is always present throughout his memories and stories from the war. To state it simply, children deserve to be children. Beah argues that youth do not deserve to have their innocence stolen by war and the pain that inevitably stems from it. In the book, Beah becomes part of the war and later has to recover from his experiences and learn to let go, all while he is under the age

This memoir about a boy soldier was very condescending. This was a true story for the author, Ishmael Beah and his life-changing events that occurred in his past. Ishamel Beah was a twelve year old African boy who lived in Sierra Leone Africa who fled attacking rebels due to a civil war in his country, who wandered into different villages trying to avoid the violence that seemed almost inevitable. He sauntered along with his brother and friends who scraped by day-by-day scavenging for food and struggled for survival. In the fifth chapter of the book, Beah describes the struggles he went through by saying, “…our joints weakened and ached” (p. 30). After days of traveling, Beah was eventually taken by the group of rebels and became one of

Through the use of imagery, Beah documents the hardships he experienced, including the exposure to war, loss of innocence, and loss of family. He intricately details these events as frightening and overwhelmingly difficult to tolerate. For Beah, being exposed to combat at age 12 was traumatizing, and he portrays details of the horrifying events through imagery.“When the rebels finally came I was cooking...My heart was beating faster than it ever had. Each gunshot seemed to cling to the beat of my heart.” (Beah 23). He describes how intimidating and alarming each bullet was and how horrific each shot exploded throughout his being. War quickly developed into a regular occurrence for Beah, leaving him deprived of his childhood and innocence. He later illustrates his

At 12 years old children should be playing sports and living fun, healthy lives. This is opposite of Beah’s childhood experience. It is difficult for one to imagine the fear that would cripple a child when war is brought to their front door. Beah was just a child when he had to experience the devastation of losing his family. How could a 12 year old properly grieve

After reading the memoir A Long Way Gone:Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, I now have a much deeper understanding of the atrocities of war and the effect it has upon young people. As an ordinary young boy in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s, Beah grew up with a love for soccer and rap music. In early 1991 the Sierra Leonean civil war began and Ishmael’s life would never be the same again. The rebels, or RUF (Revolutionary United Front), would raid villages and kill civilians, rob homes and set them on fire. In an attack on his village, Ishmael lost his entire family. Beah, a terrified twelve year old boy, was now forced to fight for himself. While running away from the rebel’s massacres, he was recruited by the government militia as a child soldier. The government forced these innocent child soldiers to fight against the rebels. In order to take their minds off of the killing, the soldiers were

Yet, these parents have to accept that they will never be able to live their lives with or share their love openly with the child. So they must find ways to hold on to the memories. Many bereaved parents come to learn that "memories are the precious gifts of the heart...[that they need] these memories and whispers, to help create a sense of inner peace, a closeness" (Wisconsin Perspectives Newsletter, Spring 1989, 1).

One Foot in Eden by award winning New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash is a story surrounding the lives of the people in the small town of Jocassee in South Carolina. A local Korean War veteran and town troublemaker, Holland Winchester, is missing and his body is nowhere to be found. The novel is separated in sections rather than the normal order of any other novel. It gives the story more depth. As the reader goes further into it, they soon learn how the lives of the people intertwine and what they have to do with Holland’s disappearance. One Foot in Eden has surely been analyzed by many critics and from very different perspectives. It is a very captivating Southern Gothic story loved by many. Has anyone looked deeper into what Rash

Nader and Salloum (2011) made clear that, at different ages, children differ in their understanding of the universality, inevitability, unpredictability, irreversibility, and causality of death. They believed, despite the increasing understanding with age of the physical aspects of death, a child may simultaneously hold more than one idea about the characteristics of death. However, factors that complete the determining nature of childhood grieving across different age groups may be a difficult task for a number of reasons including their environment in means of the support they have available, the child’s nature in terms of their personality, genetics, and gender, coping skills and previous experiences, the developmental age, grieving style, whether or not therapy was received, and the relationship to the deceased (Nader & Salloum, 2011). Crenshaw (2005) found that according to our current understanding of childhood traumatic grief and normal grief, thoughts and images of a traumatic nature are so terrifying, horrific, and anxiety provoking that they cause the child to avoid and shut out these thoughts and images that would be comforting reminders of the person who died. The distressing and intrusive images, reminders, and thoughts of the traumatic circumstances of the death, along with the physiological hyper-arousal associated with such re-experiencing, prevent the child from proceeding in a healthy way with the grieving process (Crenshaw, 2005). McClatchy, Vonk, and