Examples Of Manipulation In A Long Way Gone

In the memoir A long Way Gone Ishmael Beah states “When I was young, my father used to say, “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (Beah 54). Throughout the war Ismael Beah survives many difficult situations, that make him think is it worth it to keep running. Ishmael Beah, always remembers what his dad said to motivate him to try and keep surviving the war. Ishmael Beah used adaptability, the kindness of others and bravery to overcome the adversities of the war in Sierra Leone.

"We went from children who were afraid of gunshots to now children who were gunshots… Shooting became just like drinking a glass of water" (Barnett, 2012). Ishmael Beah, the main character and writer of the novel A Long Way Gone is a clear example of the loss of innocence that war causes. During the Sierra Leone’s civil war, Beah is recruited as a child soldier and eventually turned into a cold-blooded killer with no sign of naivety in his body. At a tender age, Beah is trained to kill, mutilate and terrify dozens of people, which causes him to be bared to a flood of disturbing scenes; transform into a murderer; loose all sense of emotion; and in time, lose his innocence. In the novel A Long Way Gone, the reader can view the multiple events

”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.

There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of these child soldiers  , Ishmael Beah is a child who lived most of his childhood in the war   . He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words according to  http://www.alongwaygone.com/index.html and his memoir “A Long Way Gone”. The war had made ishmael have perseverance  in the long run , inference that he was brainwashed by the war and that ishmael was a very hopeful child always wishing for better days.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how

Beah is ask with other boys to fight for the government in a village they were taken to. The government force was beginning to dwindle and the rebels had the village surrounded. In this scene we see the lieutenant have to make a decision. Either have the village taken by the rebels and more than likely everyone dies or recruit the boys to fight. The lieutenant let anyone

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, 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 the city where he lived, causing many deaths including his Uncle Tommy. Eventually Beah escaped Sierra Leone and managed to reach New York City, where he began a new life. Through the book A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah conveys a central theme of having to survive, at a young age, through the hardships of war with the use of imagery.

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

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.

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

In the introduction of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he writes, “There were all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it was happening in a faraway and different land. It wasn’t until refugees started passing through our town that we began to see that it was actually taking place in our country” (Beah 1). During this statement Beah says that he is completely oblivious to the war around him. These people living in Sierra Leone had adapted to the war to the point where their perception had been altered. With this memoir he shares his experiences and obstacles he faces throughout the war to become a beckon of hope in this despairing country. Ishmael uses his social skills, timely luck, and emotional strength, to find the courage to overcome these adversities and survive in and out of the war.

In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, a former boy soldier with the Sierra Leone army during its civil war(1991- 2002) with the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), provides an extraordinary and heartbreaking account of the war, his experience as a child soldier and his days at a rehabilitation center. At the age of twelve, when the RUF rebels attack his village named Mogbwemo in Sierro Leone, while he is away with his brother and some friends, his life takes a major twist. While seeking news of his family, Beah and his friends find themselves constantly running and hiding as they desperately strive to survive in a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. During this time, he loses his dear ones and left alone in the

In the memoir of Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah states that his life’s journey has been a huge obstacle, but has learned to overcome that struggle by venting while the two contradictory sides continue their battling. Beah accomplishes his goal of explaining to the reader his point of view through the use of rhetorical questions, scenic narration, and parallelism. Ishmael Beah’s apparent purpose is to share personal accounts of his life with his fellow country men, in a country where war affects people to a level beyond the imagination. He is able to apply his purpose using a grotesque and bitter tone. Beah approaches his audience of ordinary people in this manner in order to vent his feelings about war by

Children exposed to violence within their communities are left with emotions of hopelessness, insecurity, and doubt. Historical events such as the war on terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the tragic events of September 11th have had a detrimental effect on the entire nation, including the children. Although every child is not directly affected by the aspects of war, it somehow has an emotional effect on all. The involvement of a nation with war affects every individual differently, whether it is out of fear, anger, doubt, hope, or love. In the short novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he narrates the story by telling his own involvement in the Civil War in Sierra Leone as young boy and the many issues he faces while living in

In his autobiography, Beah recounts his tragic childhood filled with war and destruction. The civil war of Sierra Leone affected thousands of men, women, and children forcing them to leave their homes and be the cause of tragic acts against their own people. Ishmael, once the victim soon became the thing he feared most by joining the army. He became a ruthless killing machine at the age of thirteen and was brainwashed with the need to avenge his dead family members. Several innocent children from Sierra Leone shared the same fate as Beah but he managed to escape with his life. Others wouldn’t be so lucky.