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Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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A Long Way Gone: Fact or Fiction? Throughout A Long Way Gone, the author, Ishmael Beah, describes in great detail the atrocities that were committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Before being forced to get involved in the war, Beah was an innocent child with a passion for hip-hop music. After joining the army, his thoughts and actions became increasingly twisted and immoral. He filled his mind with dreams of violence against the rebels. His pure hatred for the opposing force is evident when he says: I could become angry, yes, begin to visualize scenarios of shooting or stabbing a rebel. ‘The rebels are responsible for everything that has happened to you.’ I imagined capturing several rebels at once, locking them inside a house, sprinkling gasoline on it, and tossing a match. We watch it burn and I laugh. (Beah 113) While the passage above is merely a thought, Beah, according to his story, has committed acts far more violent and gruesome. If accurate, his memoir would provide unprecedented insight into the life of a child solider. However, the validity of his claims has been challenged …show more content…

Beah provides a map on one of the first pages of his memoir. The author of the Weekend Australian article, Peter Wilson, alleges that “the scale of the map is out by about 500 percent and the crucial town of Yele is placed in the wrong position” (Wilson). While it may be true, that error is of negligible significance. From a logical standpoint, Beah would not have gained anything by purposefully drawing the map incorrectly. In his defense, Ishmael Beah states that he “drew the map from memory” and that he “didn’t have an instrument to measure how far [he] had gone”. It is worth noting once again that drugs may have altered Beah’s perception of time and distance. The Australian had multiple allegations against Beah and his memoir. Nonetheless, some of them were equally

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The biography, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, tells the story of a thirteen year old boy who spends his childhood being compelled to fight in the civil war in Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah tries to avoid fighting for the rebels by running from town to town with his friends as the rebels advanced. Finally, his luck runs out and Ishmael Baeh is forced to serve in the civil war for the rebels. The story goes on to describe his horrific childhood as a soldier in Sierra Leone and his eventual rescue by Unicef and rehabilitation center. In this passage, Ishmael Beah created a mental image that allows us to visualize how disturbing and how unreal living in wartone Sierra Leone during the early 1980’s.

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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.

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486 Words | 2 Pages

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is the painfully true biography of Ishmael, his elder brother Junior, their friends and their journey to out run a war that is occurring in their hometown, Sierra Leone. The majority of the story takes place in Sierra Leon in between the years of 1993 and 1998. Ishmael’s journey begins the January of 1993 when he is the age of twelve. Individuals have begun to revolt which takes everything a turn for the worse. The rebels have struck the country with fear and caused complete chaos by killing families and destroying what they once called home.

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800 Words | 4 Pages

Within Ishmael Beah’s book A Long Way Gone we see the sierra leone civil war take over and consume a young boy’s life. During Ishmael’s life his settings change rapidly because of the war, this causes him to change with his surroundings. Throughout the book the 3 reoccurring themes has to be family, death and food.

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1585 Words | 7 Pages

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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In Ishmael Beah's enthralling memoir "A Long Way Gone," the intricacies and conflicting viewpoints of war and terrorism, along with their profound impacts on Sierra Leone, are effectively conveyed through various literary devices, including vivid imagery, syntax, and diction. Ishmael's arrival at the village of Kamator after receiving news of his aunt's well-being from villagers is a particularly striking example of his use of sensory imagery. The evocative descriptions of "dew coming down every morning" and "the odor of soaked soil" encapsulate his longing to relish the captivating landscape and the transient moments of hopefulness and normalcy amidst the chaos of warfare (Beah 40). Nevertheless, Ishmael's use of short, fragmented sentences

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Ishmael suffered loss of a place to call home multiple times which caused him to lose his hope for a better tomorrow ,"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. I felt that I was starting over and over again." (Beah 69) Beah's memoir sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism which directly affected the loss of home.

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As a result, they went out to fight and were not fazed by the killing of other human beings. He feels as he is invincible and not capable of death and suddenly is no longer afraid of the idea of dying. The drugs made him angry undemandingly, so he went out to fight and did his utmost to settle the army leaders. These drugs basically numb them to the violent acts they are about to pursue to make them

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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.

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681 Words | 3 Pages

When Beah first became a soldier, he had already faced immense suffering. He had seen people from both the army and the rebels destroy families and towns. He had lost his brother and friends along his journey. However, he lost the most important thing when he himself became that monster. He had paused his humanity.

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832 Words | 4 Pages

Nic Gonet Mrs. Knebel Enriched Senior Comp. 18 December 2014 A Long Way Gone Final Paper In the memoir, “A Long Way Gone,” the author, Ishmael Beah, reflects on many very detailed war scenes that he experienced during the time of Sierra Leone’s civil war. Many of these scenes are heartless and possess things that you think no man could ever possibly live with himself after acting upon.

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1181 Words | 5 Pages

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah conveys his journey through war and hardship as a child soldier. Sierra Leone, a country on the western coast of Africa, was in civil war. Throughout the country, bloodshed was bountiful as battles were being fought and lives were being lost. Ishmael Beah was introduced to war at a young age and had to learn how to survive the war stricken lands of Sierra Leone.

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773 Words | 4 Pages

Ishmael Beah’s Memoir, A Long Way Gone is appropriate for Sterling High School’s English IV curriculum because the memoir makes connections to the real world and readers can relate to the content of the story. A big part of teaching is making students aware of what is going on in the world around them. A Long Way Gone introduces students to a glimpse of what it is like surviving in a war during teenage years. Many readers have not been through war and don’t believe it is happening unless it is right in front of their faces.

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1661 Words | 7 Pages

The War A Long Way Gone is the true story of Ishmael Beah who becomes an unwilling boy soldier during a civil war in Sierra Leone. When he is twelve years old, Beah's village is attacked while he is away performing in a rap group with friends. Their day-to-day existence is a struggle of survival, and the boys find themselves committing acts they would never have believed themselves capable of, such as stealing food from children. Eventually, Ishmael is conscripted as a soldier by the army and he becomes the very thing he feared: a killing machine capable of horrible violence.

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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.

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