Gone By Ishmael Beah

Ishamael Beah’s resilience allowed him to be adaptable to many different and difficult situations. In the beginning of the book Ishmael and his friends decide to go to Mattru Jong for a talent show. As they begin to go there they hear that the war has hit the mining areas. Ishmael and his friends knew that they may never be able to find their families again. Ishmael adapted very quickly and never gave up on trying to find them. “For more than three hours, we stayed at the Wharf, anxiously waiting and expecting to see our families or to talk to someone who had seen them.” (Beah 10) They never heard any news of them. Ishmael, Junior, Talloi begin to travel back saying goodbye to their friends. Ismael and they boys saw their first look, at what the war was about. They saw blood everywhere, parents carrying their dead children and people in pain. As Ismael, Junior and Talloi traveled

"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

Violence affects people in many ways, including how it can desensitize cruelty by means of images in the media and exposure, and how this affects our society as a whole. Violence is defined by, “the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force”. In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah we see a boy go from innocent into a soldier killing hundreds of people a day. Issues of violence our throughout our culture today, like the effects of violent movies and games in adolescents. Ishmael Beah went through something a boy should never go through, a world full of violence that left an impact on him forever.

Ishmael Beah is the protagonist in A Long Way Gone who was forced out of his village due to a war that broke out in his country. He had to hide in the woods and run from village to village seeking food and protection. Surviving the war seemed nearly impossible and throughout his journey saw soldiers do terrible things to innocent people that left him traumatized. Eventually he too was forced into becoming a solider and his life depended on killing; “kill or get killed” (Beah 126).

When war reached out to Ishmael he was away from his home and was forced to keep running in order to survive. He had heard stories from other survivors when he was younger but as he mentions, “At time I thought that some of the stories the passersby told were exaggerated”(5).

Ishmael was a victim of war because he and many other teens and children were told to take “energy boosting” pills that were actually drugs, and being young they were able to be easily brainwashed/trained to kill others who weren't government soldiers. Ishmael had been addicted to drugs because the tablets the government kept on giving the child soldiers. He wanted more drugs to stop the cravings, “During the same week, the drugs were

There, she received an education and new hands so that she could live a “normal” life. For Ishmael, he had the opportunity to move to the United States after war had struck his home once again. He gained a support system which enabled him to share his story and move on with the rest of his life Throughout both of their stories, Mariatu and Ishmael showed indescribable bravery and resilience.

The story of ishmael's life is set in Sierra Leone. The country was doing well until civil war broke out forcing ishmael and other boys to

While reading, the images that erise from the book are very strong and clear. Thinking about those kids, such powerful minds, fighting for their lives. Facing with such large difficulties, sticking together in try of staying alive. The strong will power being hungry and walking for days. Surviving this war impossible, the long days with food just kept on weakening Beah. It seems as if just a miracle could save Ishmael Beah from dieing. In the next lines, I’m going to review the moments where Beah made himself a survivor rather than a victim. During the years that were supposed to be Beah’s childhood he faces hardship that no one could have imagined that he will. It was after he got separated from his brother when his real problems began. Along

Ishmael reminiscences of his life before, when he was happy and safe, at this point of the book Ishmael is lost, and is influenced by the individuals around him leading to look at life differently, “my squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed” (126)

As an attempt to show his strength as a soldier Ishmael gets into a fight with some rebel boys in the camp, makes fun of the “sissy”

He realized that the time he is living in is “every man for himself.” Even if the little boy was not any trouble, Ishmael realized  that if he ended up caring for the boy; in a dangerous

Ishmael initial reaction to the Benin home was that of confusion and anger. At the same time he was dealing with going through withdrawal from the drug use. He did not cooperate with workers at the Benin house He refused medical treatment and all Ishmael wanted to do was fight. It was infuriating to be told what to do by civilians...We were unhappy because we needed our guns

The Leavers and the Takers’ stories are told by Ishmael to help illustrate how things came to be. The stories’ morals communicate an important lesson. Splitting humans up into two categories really showcases how tragic it is that the entire race of humans

Ishmeal begins his story in 1993, when he was twelve, and is leaving his hometown, Mogbwemo, in south-east Sierra Leone, for the day. He is going with his brother Junior and friend Talloi to Mattru Jong to dance in a talent show. His best friend Mohamed can’t make it. Thinking that they will only be gone a day, they don’t tell anyone where they are going. Although a violent, bloody revolution is being waged in Sierra Leone between the government and rebels, Ishmeal and his village have yet to be touched by it. Their only knowledge of it comes from refugees who pass through their town. After ten miles to Mattru Jong, they stop at Ishmeal’s grandmother’s house in the village of Kabati. She wonders what the boys could possibly being doing in Mattru