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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier

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No child should ever have to find himself or herself in the middle of a bitter and bloody war, nor should he or she be wry about their future getting better in their own country. Unfortunately, in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah and Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane this is the sad reality. Both Ishmael Beah and Mark Mathabane highlight the theme of loss of innocence; Ishmael presents himself as a young child soldier, and Mathebane as a young boy struggling to fulfil his dreams as a fourth class citizen in apartheid South Africa, to tell similar stories of the difficulties of young children growing up with chaos within their country, yet ultimately finding the path to success. In a likely manner, societal oppression was a constant problem Mathabane and Beah had to deal with. Even though they were young …show more content…

“One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally physically and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life” (Beah 69). At this state of Beah’s life, he doesn't know what to do with his life, he had no one to look up to, and he didn’t know if his family was dead or alive. He didn’t even know if he was going to see them again and vice versa. No child should ever feel this way. Similarly, Mark was also mentally abused, but in a more common way. “Daily I would hear my father renounce christianity in various ways, and gradually, I began to believe his denunciations” (Mathebane 62). Mathabane's parents both have different views on Christianity and they prejudice against different aspects of Christianity in his head. This leads Mathebane to not only let his father feed his brain with inaccurate accusations, but it lead Mathebane to listen to others opinions and not his own. This is mental abuse, Mark is no longer thinking anymore and making his own

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“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them,” (Beah 80). During wartime people's values change in order to adapt to the horrifying situation one is placed in. The same occurs in Beah’s A Long way Gone and autobiography of a child soldier's experience in sierra leone. Throughout Beah's journey his values change due to the people around him, the place he is located at and the tragic events a that occur.

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