Long Way Gone By 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

Ishmael had hope at the beginning trying to push through all of the struggles he had to a child soldier with no hope but just the mindset to kill back to a boy with hope and dreams to fulfill. Ishmael Beah's characterization in order to show how Ishmael had hard struggles changing he had hope at the beginning then eventually gave up on himself, but then he went to rehab and got better with the thought of hope in his mind, along with many conducive people pushing him to get better. It is important to show how the characteristic development of Ishmael is because It shows how his mind changed about everything, and his life changed drastically for him during the war times when he was a child

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

After some time as as a child soldier Ishmael thought he had finally found his place. He

He focuses on the struggle of human beings to achieve their goals by both transcending and re-creating the past. Yet humans prove themselves unable to move beyond the past.

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

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

After his home was attacked, he fled away to the only escape route out of town. In fact, “Everyone headed for it” (24). He was no longer living like a normal boy, instead, he now is a wanderer without a home. Instead of gaining friends now, he began losing them. His friend once ate an animal and then “Saidu’s body was washed and prepared for burial the next day” (85). Ishmael lost his closest friends to him because of the war. Never in his life had he lost someone close to him like that, and especially not because of war. Not only that, Ishmael joined the army. He was forced to do so in order to live. He used to be innocent and not have to join any war but now, “With trembling hands I took the gun, saluted him, and ran to the back of the line, still holding the gun but afraid to look at it" (111). Ishmael is now carrying a gun and has joined the military to kill the enemy. An army is a place where you are trained to kill, and now Ishmael, only a boy, is joining that group. Not only that, Ishmael also took various drugs. Some days the only things he ate was “...sardines and corned beef with gar, sniff cocaine, brown brown, and take some white capsules” (122). He could not get off of them and would do anything to get more. He had never taken drugs before, but now he was addicted to them and would not get off of them. But, by far, the largest transformation is that Ishmael began to kill people. He once played a “game” where

Every person in the world goes through some life changing events, whether they are small or big. These changes shape a person's personality. Many life changing events are explained in Ishmael Beah’s book, A Long Way Gone. In the book he goes through many changes throughout his childhood. The story starts during a time in Sierra Leone where rebels are causing terror supposedly trying to make the government “better”. When really they seem to be causing more chaos than help. Ishmael Beah goes through some very life changing events throughout his journey, he manages to get out of these changes but they only seem to make his life worse. Losing the people that mattered most in his life, getting enlisted into the army, and becoming a part of a new

In chapter 9, he says that, “It was a calm walk along the sand, since we didn’t except trouble in this part of the country. We chased and wrestled each other in the sand, played somersault and running games. We even bundled up Alhaji’s old shirt and tied a rope around it to make a soccer ball. We then played a game, and each time one of us scored a goal, he would celebrate with a soukous dance. We shouted, laughed, and dang our secondary-school songs” (59). This shows Ishmael and his friends becoming children one more time. For an instance they had forgotten everything around them. At first they were scared of the ocean, they feared the crashing waves on the shore, and show their inexperience. This scene is powerful because it shows what his life would have been if he hadn’t been dragged into the

In the book A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, an experienced soldier was writing about his memories of the war. Ishmael was born in Sierra Leone with his family, but one day it all changed. At the age of 12, Beah was taken by the Rebels to kill. His whole mindset changed during the war. However, when the war ended child soldiers were taken to a rehabilitation group, and it did help Ishmael go back the way he used to be before the war.

War impacts many people. Some of those people are more vulnerable than other. The book A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, gives the readers insight into war’s horrid crimes. Within Sierra Leone, where the book takes place, a young boy is separated from his family during a civil war. He is then captured and is forced to fight in the war. Ishmael, the young boy, the author, shows traits of not only a victim, but also a victimizer. He falls victim to being forced into fighting within the war, but he also puts innocent people in danger and harm.

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.

This image of Ishmael Beah contains many visual techniques that creates an effect and accurately represents his story. Ishmael is the image’s focal point, his profile enhanced by the lighting, signifying that he is the main character and that he has a story to tell. However, even though he is the focal point of the picture, the children surrounding him still take up more than half of the image. This shows that it doesn’t only take a single person to create the whole picture and the presence of others completes the image as well. Similar to Ishmael Beah’s story, his friends and loved ones’ presence physically and mentally helped him at times when he was so close to giving up, and his story would not be complete without their presence.

The main theme in this poem is that one's ways or personality cannot be remade by someone. People can imitate what a person does or how a person acts, but they will never be able to replicate it one hundred percent. The speaker in this poem talks about how when someone dies their personality will be lost forever because it cannot be reperformed by someone else, not even their closest friends or family members. “Imitators and descendants aren’t the same.” (Line 14) A person can be near someone for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks in a year and still not be them exactly. When someone dies, there will be glimpses of them in others that they have touched through their actions, but they will never fully see them in just one single person. They work on making the most perfect personality for themselves throughout their entire life just to see that when they die it dies with them. When someone works this hard on something they do not want it to end. They make people happy by using it, they help people by using