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.
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.
For this month’s SSR I read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. The author is Ishmael Beah and the publisher is Sarah Crichton Books. The copyright date is 2007 and there are 218 pages in this book. The genre of non-fiction is autobiography.
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.
A Long Way Gone is an interesting, self-oriented book on the Sierra Leone Civil War because of the author’s intentions and credibility in writing, biases, and the lessons it taught. Ishmael Beah has made strong points in A Long Way Gone about his contentions of writing. Ishmael Beah wrote this memoir to inform people about the terrors of war and how the world knew little about the war while the innocent civilians suffered great
The definition of 'home' is different for many people. Some people have no place to call home. To some, home is the place where family is at. To others, home is a state of mind, something completely resting on the beliefs or thoughts of the individual. The general idea of home is a place of safety and stability.
In A Long Way gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah explains his life and how he became a child soldier during Sierra Leone's civil war. During recounting his experiences, Beah uses literary devices which include metaphors, similes, personification, and symbolism to communicate his experiences. Before the war, Ishmael Beah was just a boy who enjoyed listening to rap music cassettes with his friends and preparing for the talent show. Ishmael Beah finally narrates the book when he is an adult, he tells us how carrying the tapes throughout the war changed his life. In his memoir, he used many associations with cassette tapes as a motif to show his psychological degradation and rehabilitation throughout his time in the civil war and return
Many times, others view unknown situations or topics as “cool”. Many times, they fail to realize the hardships others face. In “A Long Way Gone”, Beah’s friends had thought his experiences were cool but they would not feel the same way if they had read the memoir and understood the emotions and situations he had faced. Ishmael Beah’s memoir goes on to explain all the reasons why his experiences were not nearly cool.
There are many reasons English teachers should select material to teach important concepts. English is a much more loosely structured class than Calculus or Physics, so there is a great deal of controversy when choosing books for students. While some titles can hold topics that resemble taboos, the experiences of the protagonists in stories of violence, poverty, and extreme struggle can encourage growth of students as learners, thinkers, and human beings. Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone is appropriate for the Sterling High School English IV curriculum because it contains honest and detailed imagery, and because it sparks a reader’s awareness of tragedies that are being forced upon their peers across the globe.
Hunter Davis Mr.Werley English lll 9 March 2023 Unusual Normalites Ishmael Beah reflects on his experience as a former child soldier in Sierra Leone and his societal challenges after the war. Ishmael describes the difficulty of readjusting to normal life and the struggle to find a sense of belonging and purpose in the world. Beah begins by describing the unreal experience of returning to his village after the war. He says, "Everything seemed so normal, yet it was all real." (8)Beah had spent years as a child soldier, forced to commit acts of violence and witness unspeakable atrocities.
What is the meaning of adversity? Adversity is the difficulties, misfortunes, and sometimes even trials one must face in order to jump over an obstacle. WWll, holocaust, Racism are all adversities that pertain to individuals and events in the past and the present. One of the events that happened was in Sierra Leone and it was a Civil war between different African tribes. This event is explained through the eyes of the main character in the book “A Long Way Gone”, and his name is Ishmael Beah.
At the age of 13 till the age of 16 the author, Ishmael Beah, pulls himself through many terrible conflicts in Sierra Leone. The author uses conflict to show his readers the realism of his story. By using conflict in many different ways, it allows readers to gain an understanding of how Ishmael struggles changed his life for worse and for better. By using person vs person, person vs society, person vs self, and person vs nature conflict the author is opening doors allowing readers to get a full understanding of Ishmael 's challenges of a life in war. The most commonly seen conflict in ‘A Long Way Gone’ is person vs society.
A Long Way Gone alone can be sufficient enough to show just what writing can do, and how much it can do so. By simply writing about his story, Ishmael thoroughly explained what horrors occurred during the Civil War in Sierra Leone and what it takes to recover these lost memories. He helped his readers gain a better understanding on topics, like child soldiers, that most remain naïve to; much like teachers do to their students, but more specifically, Social Studies and English teachers. During my first year in AMVC, I was just a little kid who was very inexperienced with paragraph writing and the supposed “flow” of an essay. But through my teachers, I was able to break free of my naïve bubble to learn more about the art of paragraph writing; and just how significant its effect can be when used
Additional Activity 1 In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the reader can gather certain information about the story he told. The point of view of his story truly affects the reader’s understanding. Also, Beah included details that defined his experience and changed his life. He also wrote his memoir with an emotion that drove the story.
Different Ideologies Led to the Cold War The start of the Cold War can easily be traced back to the dominant ideologies of communism and democracy. The aftermath of World War II led to the scramble of domination for beliefs. Many European countries were left vulnerable to any kind of power after World War II. Communism and democratic beliefs began to spread fast.
