Summary: A Long Way Gone

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

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

While being face to face with war, Ishmael illustrates what he, as well as his life, has become, “My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector and my rule was to kill or be killed…” (Beah, p.126). With these declarations, the reader can clearly comprehend his lack of innocence and empathy. He has become a unfeeling, cold-blooded soldier trained to kill or be killed and survival is his ultimate goal. Later on in the book, the reader is informed of the barbaric scene that takes place in Benin Home, a rehabilitation center. When Ishmael arrives at this site, he ruthlessly interrogates a couple of his housemates “I took out my grenade and put my fingers inside the pin. 'Do you boys want this to be your last meal, or do you want to answer his question?”(Beah, p.133). Undoubtedly, this is not normal behavior for a 15-year old and when he displays this conduct, it can be unquestionably said that Ishmael has lost all sense of innocence and emotion. In this section of his story, Ishmael is threatening to kill boys his own age, which shows how deviated he has become from his original character and sense. Both of these examples verify that Ishmael Beah in nowhere near the innocent, rap-enthusiast and family loving boy he once was. The child that was Ishmael Beah is now dead, and in his place stands a cold-hearted

”At first she just listened to me, and then gradually started asking questions to make me talk about the lives I had lived….‘None of these things are your fault,’ she would always say…I heard that phrase from every staff member--and frankly I had always hated it--I began that day to believe it.(164)” Ishmael Beah was a 12-year-old boy living in Sierra Leone at the beginning of the book. Sierra Leone was having a war which concluded too many people dying, and running trying to survive. Ishmael Beah joined the war from being 13 years old to 15 years old, he was drugged to have more energy and brainwashed to have the mindset to kill. Ishmael Beah uses characterization in order to show how Ishmael struggles to change from a child trying to survive, to a drugged ruthless soldier who must recover in rehabilitation.

There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of these child soldiers  , Ishmael Beah is a child who lived most of his childhood in the war   . He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words according to  http://www.alongwaygone.com/index.html and his memoir “A Long Way Gone”. The war had made ishmael have perseverance  in the long run , inference that he was brainwashed by the war and that ishmael was a very hopeful child always wishing for better days.

innocence. Beah’s parents are burned alive by the rebels; this is the first step towards his animosity

Beah had never a home, he had never a place where he went and felt safe. Ishmael was never loved, he was just used for the benefit of others. He had to survive all the physical and emotional pain. Beah overcame the psychological problems that the war left him and learned how to regain his humanity that the army had taken from him. Ishmael never lost hope, he always looked forward for a better future. He kept having hope even when he was brainwashed by the army and was forced to do bad things. He was always hoping to survive. Despite what Ishmael lived through, he regained his humanity by the help of others but mostly by his perseverance and personal strength he could vanquish his killing thoughts and become a confident person

Ishmael Beah changes a lot once he becomes a soldier and when he does he gets manipulated.“So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many as I could but I didn't feel better.” This quote shows how he has changed because his first character he was scared to even see or hold a gun. After the lieutenant gives him a name and encourages him and praises him for doing these types of things he thinks its ok. “The prisoner leaned his weight on me as he gave out his last breath.I dropped him on the ground and wiped my bayonet on him”. This quote shows how different he is he doesn't even flinch when the prisoner is watching him while he kills him. He doesn't look away is sickness when his blood spills and even is happy he didnt the fastest and gets rewarded. He has changed significantly but once he is separated from corruption he changes

Ishmael Beah was at the age of thirteen when his childhood and innocence was taken from him. For example, Beah says “My childhood had gone without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen”(30). It happened so quickly. He was frantic with worry. Beah was forced to join the Sierra Leone military. It was not until later he himself started to believe he has lost his innocence. At this young age he was killing the rebels that traumatized him purely to seek revenge and to survive. His hate for the rebels was very strong, “Whenever I looked at the rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many

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

Throughout the memoir there are many cases of death, some because of health reasons and others for intentional reasons. Through family, anger, and survival of the fittest, Beah makes being responsible for someone else’s death known. After Beah’s long, treacherous journey and being separated from his family, he eventually had the chance to be reunited with his family. “The path zigzagged up to the top, where when we finally made it, everyone had to rest for a few minutes. I became angry that we had to rest, and I sat on a big rock away from the rest of the group” (93). Beah, eager to see his family could no longer wait, progressed to the village only to hear the sounds of villagers shrieking and see the village burn to ashes. The casualties in the village were caused by the rebels. The rebels were aware of their doings and knew what they did was wrong, but they did not seem to care. Although they were following orders, they were still responsible for the passing of every person there. After Beah loses his family he becomes angry with Gasemu and brutally attacks him and blames him for the death of his family. “If we hadn’t stopped to rest on that hill, if we hadn’t run into Gasemu, I would have seen my family, I thought… I got up, walked behind Gasemu, and locked his neck under my arms… I fell next to a pestle. I picked it up and hit Gasemu with it” (95-96). Along with a bloody nose, Gasemu had been shot by one of the rebels and later died. “When we finally got to the wahlee, Gasemu’s eyes were still open. Alhaji closed them. I sat by him. His blood was on my palm and my wrist. I regretted hitting him with the pestle” (99). Although Ishmael was not the one who caused Gasemu to die, he still took responsibility for intentionally hurting him with the pestle and making his nose bleed. After eluding death a numerous amount of times, Ishmael and his friends become soldiers. They began training hard and acting like the other soldiers. The idea of killing any rebel was now locked in

Ishmael Beah had a really tough life throughout his childhood and teenage years. In his literary work, A Long Way

In the memoir of Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah states that his life’s journey has been a huge obstacle, but has learned to overcome that struggle by venting while the two contradictory sides continue their battling. Beah accomplishes his goal of explaining to the reader his point of view through the use of rhetorical questions, scenic narration, and parallelism. Ishmael Beah’s apparent purpose is to share personal accounts of his life with his fellow country men, in a country where war affects people to a level beyond the imagination. He is able to apply his purpose using a grotesque and bitter tone. Beah approaches his audience of ordinary people in this manner in order to vent his feelings about war by

Both Beah and Kamara describe what it is like to live under the cruel conditions of the war, and although these authors lived in similar world, filled with blood and horror, their life stories are fairly divergent. Beah’s story includes the lives of many people who were also involved in the war. “Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities...This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you,” (Beah 37). Ishmael Beah wrote about the wartime experience for the community as a whole, rather than solely about himself. He included how even people who were close were able to turn on each other due to the high levels of paranoia. Kamara, on the other hand, wrote mainly about her own story and how she survived the war. This can still be informative, but Ishmael Beah is able to make himself more relatable by including in his memoir the ways in which everyone was affected.