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Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

832 Words4 Pages

Declan Weber
Miss K
Sophomore english
8 March 2023
The Horrible Life Of A Child Soldier “This is one of the consequences of the civil war. People stop trusting each other, and every stranger becomes an enemy” (Ishmael Beah). This shows how wars have many negative effects on all participants. Like how people lose all trust in people they do not know, this shows why child soldiers who were heavily involved in these wars should be banned internationally. An innocent kid Like Ishmael from A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah can be scooped up into the war in an instant and his whole living situation will change drastically. Ishmael was involved in the war for about three years after he was a whole different person with a whole army of new mental …show more content…

Ishmael Beah was mentally scarred for life because he fought in a war as a child. According to the article, “Biafran civil war and its effects on a particular sect of people who have been tremendously affected by the war, the child soldiers. One of the most fascinating things about war narratives is the transgenerational power of trauma across generations and how the writers, even after many years of the war, still ponder over the subject of trauma related to the war when historical anecdotes interest the world with factual details alone.” (“Child Soldier Trauma”) Usually kids are not forced to fight in wars which cause harm to their mental health for long periods of time. The shooting kids did is a direct cause of the war wearing them down mentally. The war is negatively affecting kids' mental health for the worst. These mental health problems stay with him for the entire story and the rest of his life. Therefore, children should have been never allowed to fight in wars because it negatively affects the kids mental health for …show more content…

Ishmael Beah had his friends die right in front of him in the first battle he was in. In the Article Some, as young as seven, commit unspeakable atrocities: killing parents and siblings, assaulting neighbors, torching the villages they once called home. Some are forced to serve as sex slaves. (“Life after death: Helping former child soldiers become whole again”) Usually, kids are not dying out on the battlefield. The killing being done is also kids killing kids. This is depleting the population of innocent children. All the killing being done is not good for their country as a whole. Child mercenaries should not be allowed to participate in battles as severe as

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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.

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War is destructive and tears apart the most important parts of life. Ishmael Beah was a boy in Sierra Leone when a civil war was taking place Ishmael wrote a book about his experiences titled A Long Way Gone. The book is about how Ishmael went from a boy to a soldier. Ishmael lived happily in a village when it was attacked by the rebels RUF he fled from village to village. Ishmael eventually ended up by the Army and joined them to fight the rebels.

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When he was twelve, Beah was separated from his family when the rebels attacked his village. Beah’s journey to escape the rebel forces led him through areas where he witnessed the horrors of war and it led him to war as a child soldier. Life as a child soldier left a deep impact on Ishmael Beah. Although, he recovered physically and mentally as children often do, Beah’s writing shows his difficulty in expressing his emotions.

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Ishmael changes for the bad and for the good throughout this entire memoir because of the war in Sierra Leone. The beginning of the novel is set in Ishmael’s village. He is innocent and is unaware of the true pain of war. For example, Ishmael did things

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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.

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Ishmael and other soldiers weren’t normal boys and “a change of environment wouldn’t immediately make us normal boys.”(164). The withdrawal period was very tough, Ishmael “craved cocaine and marijuana so badly”(167) that he had started to fight for no reason. Ishmael and his friends “beat up people from the neighborhood”(168) and sometimes even “threw stones at them.”(168). Ever since the war, Ishmael had lost his innocence and though he was in rehab, he was getting worse before getting better. The child soldiers have been ruthless and hate the civilians, who have no idea how bad the war has been and though innocent, the boys “kicked him relentlessly and left him lying on the floor bleeding and unconscious.”(169).

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I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child. We are all brothers and sisters. What I have learned from my experiences is that revenge is not good” (Beah 199). This supports my claim because not only is Ishmael able to openly talk about his trauma from war, he is able to acknowledge how it has taught him many valuable lessons.

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The Effects On Child Soldiers In the book, A Long Way Gone, it said, “‘Bullet wounds,’ I casually replied” (Beah 154). In the book, Beah is so mentally changed that getting shot is not even a big deal to him anymore. Most child soldiers just like him have been desensitized to these kinds of problems. Using children in war can cause them a countless amount of mental and physical pain as Beah describes in his book

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In his novel, he describes the harrowing conditions he had to endure during the Sierra Leone War. In "The Long Way Gone," he exudes how childhood wartime experiences affected his life negatively. Childhood wartime experiences tormented Ishmael Beah through flashbacks. It would remind him of afflicting memories of the war. According to the author,

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He wanted us to not only fully understand what war was all about, but also understand the personal side effects it set on all the soldiers. The physical, the emotional, and the mental side effects that many of us do not take into consideration. Beah wants to show us that war can totally change a man’s foundation. It can twist your views and your rule of judgement; things you never would once ever think of doing now seem okay because of all the repercussions of war. To give you a better understanding of what i mean, after being forced into military combat and put on many different drugs, Ishmael takes place in a throat

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On Saturday, March 23 the Sierra Leone army came under attack from rebel forces from within the country called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a ruthless group of soldiers led by a former army Sierra Leone corporal, Foday Sankoh. They would do anything to gain control of the country including the enlistment of child soldiers, and they had the upper hand until the army followed their strategy and drafted children themselves (Fyfe and Davidson). Many of the child soldiers suffered a lot of physical and psychological trauma from the war including a young boy named Ishmael Beah. In A Long Way Gone, Beah’s recounting of his experiences in the war, portrays the loss of innocence and hope in child soldiers due to the effects of war.

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Yet in Sierra Leone more than 10,000 fighter were children (Dumbuya,1). War in this third world country alted every inhabitant’s life and view on war because it was fought in their backyard. “ My uncle was sitting on the verandah, tears in his eyes... he embraced us for a long time and told us not to go to the city anymore (Beah 207)”. Everyday tasks like getting food from the city were changed because of the war.

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In the article, “CHILD SOLDIERS AND THE GLOBAL AGENDA” it says, “Children need be the victims of war only if there is no will to prevent it.” This helps show how children should not be involved in war in the first place. They aren’t the ones who have started the war. It isn’t their fault in the first place so why are people punishing the children for their involvement when it wasn’t their fault. They expect the kids to serve time or to get a death sentence when it was adults like them who brought them into this mess.

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Many young children under aged have been taken in by the government. They are being held captive tell they are drugged enough and brainwashed to go out and kill or to be killed. They are forced to train to kill under the influence of drugs and they are hardly aware of what they or doing. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because of the absents of their minds and them not being able to process what they are doing. These children are often seen as targets because they are under aged and not able to take responsibility for their actions so they are targeted to be able to kill without punishment.

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Assignment page Video Where many children all over the world merrily and freely live under the protection of the law, for others, this is a distant reality, they live in a world where they’re battling poverty, stripped of their childhood and basic human rights are expunged, they’re the innocent victims of conflict, and war is made to seem their one and only duty, not to mention that these are children no more than 10 years of age. They are put into a situation where it’s to kill or be killed. The United Nations defines a child soldier as, “Any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.” Since the past 15 years, child soldiers are being used in almost every region of the world. Unlike most children, who go to school, they’re abducted from their families and forced into becoming a child soldier, where living conditions are beyond imaginable.

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