Ishmael Beah Analysis

Throughout the novel, Ishmael and his friends begin to those their humanity and become completely different individuals because of their exposure to the war. The

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

The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This

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

Taking into account, the effects of storytelling and conversation in Ishmael’s life, it is clear his grandparents play a crucial role. Firstly, they provided him with many excellent stories, which led to him feeling compelled to re-tell them and in result regained peace at heart. In fact, his grandparents, especially his grandmother, are more or less associated with oral stories. She always told him and other children stories that were morally powerful and with no doubt memorable. For example, much of Ishmael’s life, or we had better say his

In chapter 19 memories and experiences play a role in transitioning from one place to another. Chapter 19 starts off with Ishmael transitioning from Benin Home to live with his uncle Tommy and his family. This transition would seem effortless and simple to the naked eye because Beah is now connected with a part of his family. However for Ishmael it was more difficult than it would appear. On page 182 Ishmael describes his first night, “I sighed sitting alone on the verandah. I was no longer nervous, but I missed Benin Home.” (Ishmael Beah 182). 1. How do Ishmael’s memories and experiences hold him back from now being happy in his new home and life? Ishmael has a tough time with his new life because there is so much the others don’t know about

Ishmael Beah is someone who has lived through a lot. As a child, he grew up in Mattru Jong, Sierra Leone. His life was changed when war came into his country. Here, we will be exploring the transition from being an innocent child to becoming a soldier, to being a scarred adult.

Looking closer at the facts, his family did die in an unfortunate situation. Plus he didn’t even get to see them after leaving for Mattru Jong the first time around. As he traveled with a new group of friends, he receives encouraging news, which motivate him to keep going; his family could be alive and waiting in the next town. The thing is, as he reaches closer to Yele, he finds out they actually died in rebel attacks. “I have looked around for them, but I can’t see them anywhere,” Gasemu said. (Beah, pg. 119) The above proves how Ishmael Beah was completely left alone in his life, thus did not have luck. Furthermore, he faces such an unfortunate situation for a kid his age and is forced to make a life-changing decision. Beah gets recruited by the Sierra Leonean military, with the purpose of fighting in an interminable and extensive war. As he traveled throughout the many towns, “We must have been walking for days, I do not really remember, when suddenly two men put us at gunpoint and motioned, with their guns, for us to come closer. (Beah, pg. 124) Beah is then taken to a soldier compound, whereas the days pass, he gets trained to be a soldier. The thing is, he is so unfortunate, that there is no escape from the current situation. Ishmael is forced to choose between fighting along with them, or leaving along with the chance of getting killed. This demonstrates how Ishmael was

Ishmael had become a victim from the effect of the war because of the impact it had made on his life and how it made him change. While

I will prove Ismael Beah is innocent of what actions he does in the war. Ismael was a happy child with his family. He loves rapping music, soccer and playing with his friends in Maturu Jong. The war came to his town and everything fall apart for Ismael and lost his family. Ismael was thirteen years old when he was first drafted to the army. Thirteen is a very young age for kids to be in the war. His survival or be kill from the army if he don’t join or he does, how drugs affected him, and the lieutenant is to blame of what he do with Ismael.

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

In order for the military to use these children as killing machines they had to use several tactics to emotionally manipulate these boys into killers. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah he states the following “In the daytime instead of playing soccer in the village square, I took turns at the guarding posts around the village, smoking marijuana and sniffing brown brown, cocaine mixed with gunpowder, which always spread out on the table and of course taking more of the white capsules, as I had become addicted to them” (120). Basically the tactics the soldiers used to indoctrinate child soldiers were drugs, violent movies, and teach them to seek vengeance for their family’s death. These tactics would rob the innocence of many kids and their childhoods.

When Ishmael was only thirteen years old a war had broken out in his country, Sierra Leone. This is when Ishmael began to lose his innocent. His experiences during the war and how they damaged his innocent was illustrated in flashbacks, symbols, and motifs. Throughout his experience he grasped onto memories from his childhood and he was able to revive this childhood feeling when he and his friends first see the ocean. Even though he had been through so much on his journey with his friends they had not completely lost all their innocence because everyday things in nature still brought wonder to them. As the story progresses Ishmael was forced into becoming a soldier himself. He was staying in a small village that was safe, had a sufficient

The American culture is totally different from others. It influences people from all over the world because it combines all types of cultures into one. The American culture had lots of effects on Ishmael but there were a lot more positive effects than negative. The American culture helped him a lot including getting through the war. When he was younger he and his friends would listen to rap music on their radio.

Often times when I think of displaced people I initially think of the “obvious”marginalized people in society such as poor people. The American perception of displaced people seems to differ from global reality. The article Ex-child-soldier: 'Shooting became just like drinking a glass of water’ has shed light on the fact that children are also targets for displacement. As described in the article children are easy to manipulate and are the mostly vulnerable in countries that lack governmental stability and organization.