Psychological Analysis Of Ishmael's War

Ishmael Beah is described as a pre-teen, with a love of rap and hip-hop music. He finishes as a drug-addicted killing machine, out avenging the death of his entire family. Before being rescued by a United Nations Program, and eventually fleeing to New York for rehabilitation, it is a tragic and harrowing tale that gives substance to the term ‘Boy Soldier’, that isn’t really understood in most cases. Ishmael gives a gentle portrayal of his life, before the war reached his small village and forever changed his life. Abruptly he becomes fugitive fleeing for his life and eventually into a corrupted teen.

Ishmael Beah was a child of war in Sierra Leone. His memoir retells his experiences being in the Sierra Leone army. At just twelve years old, Ishmael Beah’s homeland was infested with Foday Sankoh’s brutal army, who would stop at nothing to take control of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines. Beah then comes to explain his experience as a soldier and his killing spree. Although some may argue that his experiences are too graphic, William Boyd hints that readers should read Beah’s memoir.

This was a happy time for them and they lived with less worry about the war because the rebels were nowhere near their village. Soon after Beah tells the story about the rebels coming closer and closer to where their families live and before they knew it, the rebels came to the village and shot anyone and everyone in sight, burning down homes and stealing anything that was of value to them. Throughout the story, Beah continues to talk about his experiences about running away from the rebels with his friends and looking for their family members, going from village to village trying to survive and not being attacked at one point because the villagers feared that they traveled in packs. After being separated from the group for the fear of being captured, Beah is taken by the rebels and put in an environment where he consumes drugs, gets no sleep, and was ready to kill any civil person that came his way. He then talks about his experiences as being someone in charge for the rebels and how he became a powerful boy soldier and one day was taken to a rehab

Ishmael Beah was born in the African Country Sierra Leone in 1980, because of the country he was born in, he was subject to lots of corruption. Unfortunately, during his lifetime there a civil war had broken out and the government of Sierra Leone was in shambles. When he was just 13 years old he was taken in by the army of Sierra Leone to fight the rebel group known as the RUF (Revolutionary United Front). During the time Beah was with the army he had seen and committed numerous atrocities all because of a groups belief of war.

I consider the way the army conditioned the author, by usage of drugs and civic duty the leading factors why he partook in the brutality of the war. The battles he remembers, the way he attacked rebels, is told in a polarizing manner; it is noted that some of the rebels are in fact forced in enlistment. Ishmael Beah takes on a distinct lifestyle that forces him to act as an adult would. The way he dehumanizes and acts superior to others, can also be seen during

He was only a child still learning how to cope with his life but ended up doing it the wrong way too. The war had created victims by scaring them out of their homes to avoid dying and has also killed friends and family, leaving others who are left alive traumatized. This had also left victimizers who, because their loved ones had passed, seek for revenge and go off killing whoever stands in their way. Then becoming unsatisfied they have become the monster they had desperately tried to kill. War changes people just like Ishmael Beah, this event changed his life forever and is now living somewhere and doing things he could have never dream of as a child. War can affect anyone no matter where they are, for Beah it has affected his whole life and there are few who will not fully realize what war can do to a person until they have been put in the shoes of their

When Ishmael had to run away to find safety, he stated, “I walked for two days straight without sleeping. I stopped only at streams to drink water. I felt as if somebody was after me” (Beah 47). Ishmael had to find a way to survive that he is not normally used to. He has to drink any water he can find, and he can never rest because he feels as if somebody will find him and hurt him. He feels this way because the rebels from the war have killed many people just like him all over the continent and right in front of his eyes. Also, Ishmael began to feel alone when he stated, “It was during the attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior, my older brother” (Beah 43). The war has not only made him have a new lifestyle, but it also took away many people that he loved away from him. During the first attack on his own village he lost his family because they all ran in different directions and never found each other again. Ishmael and his older brother, Junior, were able to stick together, but another village was attacked and they lost each other. Now Ishmael was alone and had to fight for himself with no one to guide him. Ishmael was a victim because the war caused many events to occur that affected Ishmael’s

Ishmael Beah shows many different traits in “A Long Way Gone”. Ishmael is a victim and a victimizer. War can make you do many things. It can make you do good things and it can make you do bad things. War can do good things for you and bad things to you. War can change how you think and act. It can change your morals. War does many things to people. Ishmael was a victim, because his family was killed from it. And his whole childhood was messed up from it. All his innocence was taken away he had to grow up fast. It turned him into a survivor. The war also turned a kid into a killer. It turned into a kid who would never hurt a fly into a person who enjoys torturing people. War changed ishmael into a victimiser, because he tortured people instead

Through the use of imagery, Beah documents the hardships he experienced, including the exposure to war, loss of innocence, and loss of family. He intricately details these events as frightening and overwhelmingly difficult to tolerate. For Beah, being exposed to combat at age 12 was traumatizing, and he portrays details of the horrifying events through imagery.“When the rebels finally came I was cooking...My heart was beating faster than it ever had. Each gunshot seemed to cling to the beat of my heart.” (Beah 23). He describes how intimidating and alarming each bullet was and how horrific each shot exploded throughout his being. War quickly developed into a regular occurrence for Beah, leaving him deprived of his childhood and innocence. He later illustrates his

This is a very detrimental time during Ishmael’s life because he is still a very young boy experiencing this. The violence that the rebels exhibit, successfully terrify the people of these villages. This fear forces young boys into physical and mental slavery. They become child soldiers under the authority of the rebels of RUF. I noticed that throughout the novel, Ishmael became more cautious and paranoid.

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

In the beginning, Beah states that he was first, “touched by war at the age of 12” (Beah 6). This leads Beah and his brother Junior to take refuge to neighboring villages to further extend their chances of not being captured from the barbarous rebel army, RUF (Revolutionary United Front). While traveling to various villages and having to escape from the rebel army, Beah’s flashback to his Brother Junior’s stone skipping lesson allows the reader to understand how much Junior cares for his little brother, “Junior gave me his bucket, took my empty one, and returned to the river, when he came home, the first thing he did was ask me if I was hurt from falling” (Beah 39). This memory is brought to remembrance to comfort and console Beah when traveling with Junior, and call upon happier times with his brother to try and take his mind off the war. Further in the story, a village Beah and his brother Junior were taken refuge in

As a soldier, Beah was brainwashed into thinking that the life he was living was perfectly normal. He explains, “We had been fighting for over two years, and killing had become a daily activity… In my head my life was normal” (126). He thought that killing people was a normal activity to do, so he thought no wrong of it. Also, when he was exposed to drugs, he was told that they would make him a better soldier.

Beah and the boys who became his fellow child-soldiers had no real understanding of the conflict they were recruited to fight in beyond how it affected them personally. Ishmael and the other boys couldn’t fully comprehend why they had to kill the only thing they had on their minds at that moment was that they had to follow orders, so they wouldn’t be killed or left to die of starvation. “A 12-year-old is conscious only of immediate circumstances, and in Beah’s case the arrival of the rebels in his small town meant sudden

Ishmael Beah, an African American boy, a human being, has been a victim of circumstance. More specifically, a victim of war and crimes against humanity. It is during this civil war, that he had to flee from his home village, Mogbwemo, and his family, due to a rebel attack. Though this was just the beginning as he traveled across the country, Sierra Leone, in order to escape the war. Eventually, he was caught in the village of Yele when the army or UNICEF forced him to become a boy soldier.