Ishmael Character Analysis

Ishmael acts like all the older soldiers by doing drugs, watching war movies and never sleeping just like they do. He acts this new way only because of who he’s surrounded and influenced by. Now in the novel, Ishmael’s character is changing completely. From a considerate, playful, young child; he’s now a ruthless, animal-like killing machine for the government

This is shown when Ishmael says “I wanted to make myself disappear” P.G 46 this shows Ishmael has no self-confidence in himself when he is trying to help the Morfield primary kid from Barry Bagsley. Ishmael is a main person who puts himself down and lowers his self-esteem.

Later on in the training, Ishmael has a sentence stuck in his head, “Visualize the enemy, the rebel who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you” (Beah 112). This sentence really gets to Ishmael in his training which builds up his anger against the rebels. This marks the end of his innocence as he starts to imagine burning rebels in a cage and laughing at

Ishmael started year nine thinking he can stay invisible like he did in year eight. But some students named “Barry Bagsley, Doug Savage and Danny Wallace” made his life tougher than ever by teasing him, bullying him and even sometimes embarrassing him in front of his home room. In chapter 13, it directly says in the second and the third

One of the cases that showed Ismael ongoing struggle with trust in people was when he was saved. This struggle was prominently seen when he was approached by his nurse who was trying to help him. He got help from the UNICEF because the lieutenant handed Ishmael to them. When the lieutenant gave him away to the UNICEF he felt betrayed because he was the only one Ishmael trusted. Ishmael nurse was Esther and everytime she tries to help him he wouldn’t cooperate. He didn’t trust the nurse because for his whole life he wouldn’t trust anyone because he thought if someone wants to friends they only want to exploit one another.

In his time during the war Ishmael’s sense of security was constantly under attack. As

To start off, all of Ishmael’s problems stem from his original conflict when he has to run away from the war, his family, and his friends. The origin of the situation was when the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) attacking his home city of Mogbwemo (where his parents were). Later on in the month the rebels attack Mattru Jong (where

Ishmael, in A Long Way Gone was made boy soldier. Ishmael went through many commands to hurt people and try to bring an anonymous message. Treating people with injustice without knowing the reason why he was even doing it. Showing corpses, dead people before torturing them and then killing them. Becoming brainwashed with all the task he was being told to do he thought that this was his life. Making games out of the torture and killing with his friends. Slowly giving up on trying to get away from the rebels. “People were terrified of boys our age” (Beah 37). Having everyone still around scared of him, not doing anything to help him, but just trying to get away from him.

In his novel Ishmael, Daniel Quinn discusses the destruction and salvation of the world. By way of a newspaper ad, an unnamed narrator meets a telepathic gorilla, named Ishmael, who had put up the ad to find a pupil with a desire to save the world. Spurred by his benefactor’s obsession with Nazi Germany, Ishmael imparts on the narrator what he knows best: captivity (Quinn 24). Ishmael claims humans of what are considered civilized cultures are captives of a story that keeps the world captive. This large group, Ishmael calls “Takers,” while everyone else—usually hunter-gatherers of “primitive” cultures—Ishmael calls “Leavers” (Quinn 39). In order to save the world, Ishmael believes Takers need to be freed from the story they are

Ishmael shows that he is all of these poor qualities because he spends most of his time making himself microscopic to Barry Bagsley, the school bully. Ishmael does not put his hand up knowing Barry will mock and ridicule him. This demonstrates that Ishmael is panic stricken whenever it comes to facing Barry or when- ever he is in sight. Ishmael does not dare to go near Barry on the yard knowing that he will endure taunts and a variety of insults. When Ishmael states “Sometimes I couldn't even recognize myself” (p. 21) It makes evident that Ishmael’s self esteem is immensely affected by Barry in class and on the school

During a battle he was fighting in, Ishmael says, “My face, my hands, my shirt and gun were covered in blood. I raised my gun and pulled the trigger, and I killed a man” (Beah 119). Ishmael is now killing people that might have a family or others who care about them just like what the rebels have done to him. He felt as if he needed revenge on the people who changed his childhood, but he could have been killing people that had nothing to do with the murder of his family. Also, Ishmael had to do many horrible things to people while he was a soldier. One of the things they did was brutally kill the rebel prisoners they had. The first time Ishmael did this he said, “We were supposed to slice their throats on corporal’s command. The person whose prisoner died the quickest would win the contest” (Beah 124). So, Ishmael has participated in many different cruel events that no human should ever be apart of. The soldiers enjoyed killing the rebels and never wanted to stop. They played games and had contests that involved killing other humans that had a life themselves. Ishmael was a victimizer of war because he participated in the killings of many of the people in the

The army leaders are trying to convert the recruits to want revenge. Like the text says, “Visualize the banana trees as the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you” (112). The leader wanted to get into their mental and get them to think of things as something that motivates them to kill rather than the actual thing it is, get them to let their anger and pain out on others. In conclusion, Ishmael now does it without the need of someone making him do it and he is very comfortable with

Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is the story of one man’s quest for knowledge and his desire to “save the world”. Answering a simple ad in the paper of a teacher looking for students (p4), the narrator is sent on an incredible philosophical journey. The teacher our narrator expects is not that which he finds, however, as our titular character Ishmael, so aptly named by Walter Sokolow (p18) as he sensed the gorilla’s almost divine presence, is that teacher. This teaching is made possible by Ishmael’s miraculous telepathic way of communication (p21).

This is until a group of rebels is surrounding the village. Then Ishmael is forced to become a soldier and finally fight against the people which he hates the most which is the rebels. While training is the army the Corporal brainwashes him into believing that every single rebel is responsible for the death of his parents and that they are not human. It is because of this reason that Ishmael is more than happy to strap up with an AK-47 and mow down rebels. He thinks that getting revenge on the rebels will make him feel better about losing his family.

As Ishmael was on his own wandering through the forest feeling scared, He through “Why was I the last person in my immediate family to be alive” (Beah 179). It show that Ishmael was a victim, because he was the last in his family to survive. He has no real family out their. He is on his owne at a very young age. A victim is a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. And Ishmael was harmed by an event. He had his family die before him because of the attacks on the village. He is a victim. After being forced into the war Ishmael traumatically said “It took several months before I was able to realm how to sleep without the aid of medicine. But even when I was finally able to fall asleep, I would