The Bite Of A Mango And A Long Way Gone : Book Analysis

All trust was lost between citizens. Ishmael could not be seen as anything but a soldier, he became very lonely. The war took away the happiness and overall family like atmosphere of Ishmael along with his country of Sierra Leone.

In the memoir, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael talk about his story of his childhood and when he was recruited as a child soldier during the war in Sierra Leone. In the book, it is his journey to escape the war and explains what he went through when the war first made an appearance in his life, to when he was actually a part of the war and fighting, killing, and harming other people, then later on when he was brought to a rehibition center to be established back into society and lastly how he finally escape Sierra Leone and began living in New York City and how he spoke and informed people about the children affected by war. He talks about the horrible things that happened to him and everyone that was affected by the war. On his journey

The drastic change in Ishmael’s character is unexplainably noticeable. The book began with an innocent, troublesome and mischievous boy untouched by war, and by chapter fourteen, he was unrecognizable. I did not understand nor recall the boy I was reading, it was as if the points of view had been interchanged, and I was reading from the perspective of a blood thirsty soldier. He had become that soldier. The deterring character development that Ishmael undergoes during his time in the army is as sudden and shocking as the death of his family. Just as he was given a flicker of hope, it was snatched away from him mercilessly, along with his childhood and innocence. Ishmael had become one more among the mass, he was another brainwashed and drugged

Ishmael Beah, the author of the memoir A Long Way Gone, is a twelve-year old boy who is trapped inside a war zone in Sierra Leone, Africa. When his home town, Mattru Jong is attacked by “the rebels,” he is separated from his family and is forced to run from everything he once loved. Ishmael flees from town to town with other teenagers who face the same problems, trying to survive and escaping attacks from villagers. Beah writes, “People were terrified of boys our age. Some had heard rumors about young boys being forced by rebels to kill their families and burn their villages,” (Beah 37). At such a young age Ishmael was trying to survive off of what he had; sometimes he went days without food. Ishmael was deprived of more than just his clothing.

Throughout the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael faces a plentiful amount of challenges and conflicts. In the book there are four main conflicts that Ishmael faces and overcomes. These conflicts include Ishmael running away from the war, his family, and his friends, Ishmael's entire family dying and him becoming a soldier at the age of 13, Ishmael going through rehabilitation, and Ishmael trying to move to a safer area when war meets Freetown.

War is a traumatizing experience for anyone, but especially for children. A Long Way Gone demonstrates how a child’s innocence can be taken away

“If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen...” (pg. 54). Throughout the course of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, we familiarize ourselves with the exceptional hardships that Ishmael has experienced as a child soldier, in Sierra Leone, and what actions he takes to overcome them. Despite the fact that Ishmael has been through these devastating hardships and that he became the fear that he himself feared, Ishmael is able to instill hope and keep the reader going through the themes of powerful memories, nature and redemption. He does this through the use of powerful memories that contrast the fear and danger of the war with the remembrance of the beauty of life. Furthermore, nature leaves the reader striving

“He never said anything back then and didn’t get upset by what they said.” (Beah, 2007, p. 91) Living freely, this man is a spirited human, not suffering but taking the pain. Pleasant people in ‘A Long Way Gone” are the selfless, secure souls. Next, on page 119, Ishmael remarks “I was not afraid of the lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them.” At the front lines of his first battle as a soldier, trained to fight and through with living fearfully. The water rises and Ishmael builds his wall. Also, on page 187 Ishmael utilizes brutal honesty with his interviewer, never questioning himself, “I meant what I said and it was not a funny matter.” Embodying the confidence of someone choosing to stay when everyone else runs, surviving the war. In conclusion “I Lived” by OneRepublic (2013) the pinnacle of connections between the real world and literary devices in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (2007), reflecting the significance of courage and all it can get you

Since the start of the Sierra Leonean war in March of 1991, innocent civilians have been the primary target of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)’s wrath. The people of Sierra Leone have faced significant problems due to the invasions and attacks by the Rebel Forces and are the main population that is being affected by this group’s disapproval of the government. One person who experienced profound changes in her life due to the start of this war is Mariatu Kamara, a victim of a Rebel attack that cost her both her childhood and her hands. Throughout her memoir, “The Bite of the Mango,” she is faced with numerous traumatic events and meets an abundance of people who were very significant in her life and some of whom helped her survive the war. Kamara also gives the reader a variety of themes to use as a foundation to understanding war life, which also serve to help readers learn more about life, grow as people, and rise above to help others in need. Mariatu Kamara has not only changed the lives of people all throughout Sierra Leone by giving them a voice and an outlet to share their experiences, but has also proved to be an inspiration for countless amputees around the world.

In the introduction of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he writes, “There were all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it was happening in a faraway and different land. It wasn’t until refugees started passing through our town that we began to see that it was actually taking place in our country” (Beah 1). During this statement Beah says that he is completely oblivious to the war around him. These people living in Sierra Leone had adapted to the war to the point where their perception had been altered. With this memoir he shares his experiences and obstacles he faces throughout the war to become a beckon of hope in this despairing country. Ishmael uses his social skills, timely luck, and emotional strength, to find the courage to overcome these adversities and survive in and out of the war.

When most people of think of war, they generally think of the glorified aspects. Love and violence. Or perhaps their minds are drawn to an image of a soldier’s homecoming: A father embracing his son, crying tears of joy, all while the solider relays his experiences of the war among celebratory decorations. He is now considered a hero. But what difficulties has he faced to get there? This is the side of war that many of us don’t recognize. In the memoir, A Long Way Gone, author and protagonist, Ishmael Beah, experiences civil war and its effects first hand when he is forced into becoming a child soldier in the poor third world country of Sierra Leone. As the novel progresses, Ishmael becomes increasingly addicted to drugs,

Mariatu Kamara and Susan McClelland’s co-written non-fictional novel, The Bite of the Mango is a page-turning adventure through the mind of a young girl who struggles with many physical and emotional challenges in her daily life as a poor village girl in Sierra Leone. Mariatu Kamara is an eleven-year-old girl who has learned how to live without her hands. In result of being a victim and survivor of a rebel attack, Mariatu is now a double amputee and has made many lifestyle changes to work around her disability.

The impact of war can have devastating effects on people and the way they live their life. A book by Ishmael Beah titled, A Long Way gone, tells a story about how war has had an impact on him and his way of life. The book takes place in Sierra Leone during the time the RUF had tried to overtake the government. The RUF and the other side of the war got their soldiers by brainwashing kids usually around ten or twelve and had them fight for their side. The RUF was ruthless and did unspeakable things to innocent people and would usually in some cases give drugs to their kids. Ishmael fits the role of both a victim and a victimizer because of what the war and the RUF soldiers had did to him and what he has done to

Even then,“When one of the soldiers came to search me, I pushed him and told him that if he touched me I would kill him”(129). He wanted to stay in the army and keep fighting, showing just how much the army caused him to be scarred. However, UNICEF made Ishmael go with them too, Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. He had never seen a city as big as this one before. He was placed in a rehabilitation center and did not like it at all. He did things like “...refused to do anything that we were asked to do, except eat” (138) and “...fight for hours in between meals, for no reason at all" (139). He wanted to fight, so he found another group of boys to fight there instead. Ishmael was so angry once he “...punched the glass with my fist" (140). He did not trust many people there but slowly began to make new friends. One of the nurses he was being taken care by eventually became his friend, but still “...didn’t completely trust Esther” (166). When Ismael found love and a girlfriend, his relationships would not last long because “They wanted to know about me, and I wasn’t ready to tell them.” (184). He was so scarred that he would end a relationship because he did not want to talk about what happened to him when he fought in the war. Ishmael was so scarred and had been through so much, that the United Nations wanted him to speak at a conference about children fighting in wars. He created

In A Long Way Gone Ishmael uses flashbacks, symbolism, and nature motifs to illustrate the loss of his innocence. Beah’s memoir shows how he and all the other boy soldiers lost their childhood when they became a solider. At the age of 13 was the end of his childhood where he believes his childhood ended. Through the whole book he tries to use his memories as comfort and a reminder that he is still a child no matter the situation.