ipl-logo

Advantages Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

1038 Words5 Pages

The Damages of War
“Mourning the dead wasn’t part of the business of killing and trying to stay alive.” (149) The mind of a child is a scary place, full of dangerous thoughts. There is no hope, and, in their minds, no need to hope. They get used to the environment, to the killing. They see nothing wrong with what they do. In 2007, Ishmael Beah published a memoir called “A Long Way Gone” about his time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. When he was twelve, the RUF (rebels) attacked his home village of Mogbwemo while he was in Mattru Jong with his older brother and their friends. The RUF then began to attack neighboring villages, sending Ishmael and his brother running. They are eventually separated, and Ishmael finds a group of boys his age. …show more content…

For example, people were too scared to go to work. They didn’t want the rebels or the army to shoot them. That means that there were no doctors there to help take care of those who became ill. So when Ishmaels uncle got sick, there was no one willing to help him, resulting in death. “My cousins cried, asking, Who is going to take care of us now? Why did this happen to us in these difficult times?” (208) Even though he wasn’t their biological father, he still treated them as though they were a part of him. He loved them as their own, and his death took a huge toll on them. I can only imagine how many other families were torn apart simply because the doctors weren’t willing to leave home and help as it meant risking their own …show more content…

Many of the child soldiers who were able to leave the war had a tremendous amount of problems. “But at night some of us would wake up from nightmares, sweating, screaming, and punching our own heads to drive out the images that continued to torment us even when we were no longer asleep.” (148) The child soldiers who were rescued and sent to one of the rehabilitation centers still had the same mentality. They were still addicted to drugs, and to killing. They would sometimes even choke one another. But when that need to kill faded and the last of their high wore off, they finally came to terms with the fact that they had killed many people. They had burned villages to the ground. They would have nightmares, the kind of nightmares a normal kid would run to their parents about. But they had nobody. The personnel at the centers tried to connect with them, but the boys still had the mentality that they shouldn’t trust

Show More
Related
613 Words | 3 Pages

In the memoir, A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael faced the tragic start of war in his home place, Mattru Jong, Sierra Leone on January of 1993. At just the age of twelve his village had been wrecked by rebels who had been going to other villages as well. It was just a normal happy day before everything had occurred. When the news spread, Ishmael, his brother, Junior, and friend, Talliou were at a rap performance. They left in search for money and any family, but everything was gone.

Read More
197 Words | 1 Pages

The civil war that happened in the years 1991-2002 made a big impact on every man, woman and child in Sierra Leone. The author Ishmael Beah goes into exceptional detail in the book A Long Way Gone about his journey making it out of the Sierra Leone civil war. Ishmael was only at the age twelve when the war came to his village. From this point on, his life was changed forever.

Read More
334 Words | 2 Pages

A Long Way Gone is memoir that was written by a young soldier by the name of Ishmael Beah who was forced into the war raging army for the sake of his protection and survival. Ishmael’s story is full of traumatizing experiences and the violent conflicts that occur in being a child solider. His home village, Sierra Leone, was attached by a rampant group of rebels who were devoted in destroying and killing everything and everyone one in its path. During the time of the attack, Ishmael, his brother, and friends began to wonder off to different villages as a way to escape the rebel’s wrath. Maneuvering from village to village required the group of boys to endure the struggles of finding food, shelter, and safety.

Read More
216 Words | 1 Pages

A Long Way Gone, is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah. Ishmael was born in Sierra Leone and grew up during the civil war in Sierra Leone. In, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael tells the reader his experiences as a boy soldier and his experiences in rehabilitation in order to regain his humanity. The book begins with Ishmael answering questions to his high school friends, in New York, about his time in the war.

Read More
503 Words | 3 Pages

The impact of war can have very harmful effects on people, especially children. In “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah, he explains the war of Sierra Leone from his point of view. The tragedy of losing his family, becoming a boy soldier, and the effects of war is said throughout the book, making it an interesting story to read. But, while Ishmael explains what he went through, it is hidden that other people were affected by the actions he took. Although Ishmael did play a victimizer, he was also a victim at the same time.

Read More
486 Words | 2 Pages

Ishmael Beah being number one for he is the author and narrator of this account. He retells his journey, fighting to run from war and battle with internal struggles. After being captured, brainwashed and beaten Ishmael is finally given a break. He has the chance to recovery and is reunited with his Uncle Lennie. Lennie assists Ishmael in his recovery and helps him to remember the happy times with his loved ones.

Read More
579 Words | 3 Pages

Ishmael Beah has experienced extreme hardships ever since he was a little boy. Growing up in Sierra Leone during war causes Ishmael’s life to revolve around such. In the nonfiction book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldiers, Ishmael Beah shares personal accounts of what it was like growing up in a period of violence and separation. Ishmael and his family live in a small village called Mattru Jong. When Ishmael is twelve-years-old, his village is attacked by rebels.

Read More
642 Words | 3 Pages

Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone is appropriate for the Sterling High school English IV curriculum because of Beah’s knowledge that reveals real life events that have occurred in Sierra Leone. Also, the memoir makes the reader grateful for the life he or she has today. For instance, Beah illiterates that the rebels have no sympathy for innocent lives and did not care if they lived or died. Specifically, when the rebels captured Beah and his friends and threatened to kill innocent people in front of them; “We are going to initiate all of you by killing these people in front of you”(34).

Read More
426 Words | 2 Pages

A Long Way Gone is a memoir of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone, who struggles to keep his humanity. Ishmael Beah, the author, achieved success once he went off to speak at the United Nations conference and when he realized that he could not go back to the war. Beah achieved success when he went off to New York and spoke at the United Nations conference. As Beah sat around the conference listening to all the other children that represented their country, Beah sat proudly “behind the Sierra Leone name plaque..

Read More
657 Words | 3 Pages

In the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has to overcome his fears and desperation especially when he ends up in villages that dislike little kids because of the assumption that they are rebel soldiers. Sometimes he comes face to face with death like the time when some of the villagers who were suffering the civil war, capture Ishmael and his new accompanied friends they were saying ”We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding. The crowds shouted, drown the rebels”(Beah 38). When the village guards found a rap cassette in Ishmael's pocket they played the music and it pleased the chief and so they were excused from execution and as a result they were offered to also stay in the village for how long they wanted. This part in the story paves a path from Ishmael to talk and although that was one of his major obstacles pertaining to his life he succeeded and faced adversity by pleading that they were not rebels but

Read More
1498 Words | 6 Pages

Murderer. When you think about this word, the first thing that pops into your mind wouldn’t be a child, but for many around the world, this is the case. Over 300,000 children fight in wars around the world, slaughtering person after person without mercy. Ishmael Beah’s a long way gone is about the author’s first-hand experience of the 10 – year civil war in Sierra Leone, in which he was turned into one of these brutal, savage killers and then later rehabilitated. In the beginning of the book, young Ishmael, who is about 12 years old at the time, travels to a city called Mattru Jong with his brother, Junior, to participate in a talent show, where they learn that their village was attacked by a rebel group.

Read More
1110 Words | 5 Pages

Ishmael says, “I wasn’t sure whether he was unconscious or dead. I didn’t care” (Beah 135). Ishmael is no longer in the war, yet the violence and numbness to it continues. The hell from war made its way into a normal life for Ishmael. He will never be the same Ishmael from before the war.

Read More
1212 Words | 5 Pages

The war to Ishmael was simply an issue extraneous to him and far away from his home. He sees people coming from his village were escaping from the rebels leaves his home village, Mataru Jang and for the first time, he gets a shock from a man covered with his son’s blood and a woman who carrying her dead baby on her back. He does not know if his family is alive or dead. He was a boy who never had been through the unexpected situation without learning how to weather the situation. All he could do was “listen[ing] to rap music, trying to memorize the lyrics” (Beah 15) to avoid thinking about the situation at hand.

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

The way Beah explained what happened to him, he did it in a sad way. My response to the writer is that I feel sorry for him. I cannot relate to him in any way since I have never been exposed to war and even been a soldier fighting in it. He was strong through the hardest part of his life; the actual war itself, rehabilitation, and ultimately escaping Freetown, Sierra Leone to eventually fly over to New York and start a new life. Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, replays a part of Beah’s life that will always be very vivid to him.

Read More
1064 Words | 5 Pages

Emily Dietz Dr. Christopher Burlingame Rhetoric II June 9, 2023 The Value of Uncomfortable Art Art and literature is created to push the boundaries of normal ideas. Each involves bringing different ideas to the table that are not usually thought of. Art generates outlets for artists and authors to express themselves and provide different perspectives.

Read More

More about Advantages Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

Related Topics

Open Document