Ishmael Reflection

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is an book which discusses many things, most specifically how humans see and treat the world around them. The book categorizes humans into two distinct categories, takers and leavers. There are many themes which are used throughout the book, such as captivity, identity, and evolution. One of the most important things discussed throughout the book is the environment, how humans treat it and how the takers are destroying the world through knowing nothing about it. This book has many parts of it that make it interesting to read, like the Takers and Leavers, all the different themes, and the discussion Ishmael has on the environment and how humans treat it.

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

He gave them drugs which made lose their innocence. Ishmael remembers that his mission was to kill every rebel on sight. The corporeal taught them to be soldiers didn't teach them how to feel bad for everything after a kill because the boys don't feel bad after killing the rebel boys. His role is important because he turned into wild animals that be bad all the time. But he made Ishmael meet nurse Esther.

Memory is Ishmael’s weakness in the story, it haunts him everyday. He always thinks about Sierra Leone and

Reflection is a major factor in "developing self-awareness" to improve services provided to everyone around me, this is to develop my own understanding in realising the good and bad made previously. Moving forward with a better understanding, as well as rectifying the mistake whilst recognizing the good points, (Horton-Deutsch and Sherwood, 2008).

One of the tragic parts of Ishmael’s novel was his detailed description of how these orphaned, lost children are taken advantage of as boy soldiers. These boys were young and easily influenced. There were many factors that led them to their lives as killing machines. They were brainwashed both mentally and physically. First, mentally by being manipulated to a certain way of thinking. The first time Ishmael introduces his life as a boy soldier is in chapter 12. First, a village that is occupied by the army, which is fighting against the RUF, rescues Ishmael and his friends. The rebels then start heading toward the village and this is when Ishmael and the rest of the boys are recruited. They are first given a speech by the Lieutenant, the speech

1) I do agree with what Ishmael (Quinn) saying in the above quote. Ishmael is saying that people are not ignorant of the fact that they are destroying the world, they are just egotistical and thinking only of themselves. “I'm sure he knows that any species in the wild will invariably expand to the extent that its food supply expands. But as you know, Mother Culture teaches that such laws do not apply to man.” (133) If the Takers don't change the way they live destruction will continue to exist and humans having their minds set, cant change it. “The rule of that law was and is sufficient. Mankind was not needed to bring order to the world" (146). Ishmael is explaining how humans believe that the world was created for

The craft of writing is a complex one, filled with characters,setting,plot and surprises. A book will take you on a journey through many different lands real or fake, this journey is filled with twists and turns stopping at the end of the road. Ishmael Beah is a writer who took readers on this journey twice.

Another very important scene is Ishmael learning who he is. He leads Narrator from the scene of the tiger to his own self-realisation who he his. Ishmael develops the scene from being a captive in a zoo to being sold to a menagerie where he learned from listening to the visitors the difference between himself and a female chimpanzee with a baby in the neighbouring wagon. Ishmael connected over time the different sounds visitors addressed the chimpanzee and him to names visitors were giving them both. A minor leap allowed Ishmael to realise that everything has a name. Despite all efforts at that stage Ishmael was unable to determine the difference between humans and animals. One day a visitor he greatly admired came and after a lengthy observation

In chapter 2, Ishmael is terrified by the death and horror surrounding him, but in the next paragraph, he fully acknowledges the part he played in the death and horror. The army became his family and he was brainwashed into believing that each rebel killing is avenging his own family’s deaths. The boy soldiers became addicted to cocaine, marijuana, and brown brown (cocaine mixed with gunpowder) which gives them the courage to fight and the ability to suppress their own emotions. The reality was that it was their only means of survival. Consequently, Ishmael lives in really horrible conditions all the time and sees very little hope that his existence will ever

I do not recall learning about reflective practice in my undergraduate studies. Reflective practice according to Barbour (2013), “is the cyclic process of internally examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self, existing knowledge, and experience; resulting in a changed conceptual perceptive and practice” (p. 7). According to Barbour (2013), reflective process has many positive outcomes to help guide the nurse to become an expert nurse that can make on the spot decisions that do not interrupt patient care. I feel that reflective practice would have been beneficial to help guide me from a student nurse to a practicing nurse with critical thinking skills.

While not fully healed, Ishmael is on his way; alone, but also alive – he is hopeless, but relieved. Ishmael’s story is told, and in it, a new acknowledgment of human nature is found, for one first needs a family to be an

This semester I learned a lot about writing in English 151. It has been a roller coaster ride with these essays for me this semester. I learned step by step how to write a good essay and how to have your readers be engaged in what you’re trying to tell them. Each essay I did has taught me something valuable I can take to the next level of English. I feel as if as the semester went by I did not take my writing that seriously and that reflected in my grades I received in each essay. It made me a better student and writer and it will reflect next semester. In this essay, I will reflect on what I learned throughout this semester that you should apply in your writing when you begin English 151.

Ishmael Introduces the readers to what effect hunger has on behavior and human physiology in general. He also expresses that war and torment lost its holds on humanity that youth (the rebels) talk to elderly anyhow at a gun point. How the youth lost the home training and culture that requires respecting the elders and everyone in the community. The rebels forcefully subject young boys to torture, threat, and horrible sight of mutilation and brutal killings as initiation before they are recruited. Holtz (2017) expresses how boy solders are involuntarily recruited into the military by being kidnapped from their villages and forced to commit atrocities upon threat by their own deaths (p. 152). The recruitment is done out of no will of the recruited. All the sufferings brought about the break in connections amongst peers, unboundedness, and lack of confidence to the youth. Bears fears the separation when he was selected as the new recruit and his brother was not. These disillusioned youth who have no idea what could happen the next minutes began roaming the bush without any idea where they are going, what will become their faith, and how to get to a safe place.

Last year, I challenged myself to sign up for an odd English class – a class that most high schools do not offer – Humanities. The description of the course stated I would be learning about architecture, art, and music – three things I knew very little about. I could not wait to start my senior and learn new things. On the first day of school, we were given first assignment, but there was a catch. Instead of starting with our summer reading, hand us paper with the words, “explore your stance on the great questions of philosophy.” These included what is man’s place in the universe? Does free will exist? What are reality and truth? One of our main reading assignments was Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, by Daniel Quinn. Throughout the book, there were many eye-opening moments. During one of these instances, Ishmael