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Book Analysis: A Long Way Gone

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A tree falls, separating an event in half, a person is on one side and one is on the other side of the tree. One person thought they saw the tree fall naturally and the other thought the tree was cut down. Both people witnessed the same tree fall, but from different perspectives. The people that saw the tree fall down continue tell their side of the story differently according to the way they saw it. Generations get used to hearing only the single story and only believe one side. A single story is dangerous because it gives an incomplete perspective on an event and only half of the truth, causing people to form a discriminatory response, whereas, multiple stories complete the entire picture and provide many perspectives. A single story not only affects a person’s opinion, but it can affect an individual’s actions to a …show more content…

The cause of the Sierra Leone war was diamonds. Not even the civilians knew the complete story. The Blood Diamond Documentary informs people about the Sierra Leone war and it’s bloodshed, but just watching it doesn’t give you the whole truth. Child soldiers did many things wrong, but they are also victims of the war. A Long Way Gone allows people to become personally attached to the main character, Ishmael Beah, who was a child soldier. Throughout the book, a twelve-year-old boy loses his family and himself. Beah was easily manipulated into becoming a child soldier, just like so many other children. In the article, “Child Soldiers,” it summarizes how easily children can be manipulated during states of emergency, “Children are particularly susceptible to manipulation and forced recruitment due to their physical and emotional immaturity.” Being a young child during the Sierra Leone war made it easier to recruit them. All child soldiers are victims of a single story; manipulated into killing innocent people because of their emotional state and left to be discriminated against, like Ishmael

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier

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The book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is an autobiography about a boy named Ishmael who went through so much at a young age. This book should be read because it’s a story you could relate to and give you a perspective of how society is today than it was before and how it has affected people across the world. On the (front cover of the book) Carolyn See from the Washington Post says “Everyone in the world should read this book… We should read It to learn about the world and about what it means to be human.” She’s right, reading this book will provide you with facts you never known and could change the way you see things today.

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The Responsibility Of Ishmael Beah's Attacks In Sierra Leone

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An autobiography, of which Ishmael Beah unwillingly becomes a child solider due to a civil war that has arisen in Sierra Leone. Before the attacks had happen, Ishmael and his elder brother Junior had gone from home to perform Rap in Mattru Jong with their friends. Not long after their arrival, news of the rebels had come to their attention having raided their home town and no sign of their families being unscarred from the warfare. Ishmael, and his group of friends sought out to travel to each village seeking out their family. However trouble comes across due to the majority of RUF rebel attacks were caused by children around their age, many villagers had no trust for these kids.

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A Long Way Gone Analysis

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Not experiencing war is a luxury many people unfortunately do not get; however, Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone, lives and survives the war, though not without heartache. With war there is always fear, death, and hell. Ishmael Beah proves war is hell through the killing of civilians, the distrust, and the after effects of the war. Ishmael proves war is hell through the killing of civilians. Many innocent bystanders of the war are forced out of their homes, made to run for their lives.

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Desire is the need for an object, a feeling or a person. One can have a desire for something that is essential for survival, such as water or food, but desire could be used to harm others or oneself. Through A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael’s perspective of desire was altered dramatically. These desires were changed from his surroundings or events that were taking place. In the book, Ishmael was easily manipulated by his desires.

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In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael becomes a child soldier at the age of 12 for the governmental team the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, in order to fight the Revolutionary United Front. Ishmael goes from being a regular kid who liked to spend time with his friends

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A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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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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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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A Long Way Gone Literary Analysis Essay

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The human condition is full of paradoxes and double meanings. We can commit the most shocking and terrible acts, but we can complete the most virtuous and honorable feats. Ishmael Beah describes the appalling and violent behavior he and other children exhibited toward the human life during his time in the Sierra Leonean civil war in his memoir, A Long Way Gone. Beah also details the forgiveness and kindness of complete strangers that helped him become the man that fate meant him to be. Homo sapiens are complex creatures brimming with irony and surprises.

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“The saddest sight these days is the imagine of hundreds of children kidnapped and lured into being child soldiers from the age of eight”(Roger Moore).”A Long Way Gone”was written by Ishmael Beah and published in 2007. As horrible and terrifying the experience was for Ishmael Beah starting in Sierra Leone from a young age,he still had enough courage to publish his own memoir. As a kid Ishmael was a happy child that loved music and dance. While performing rap music with his friends away from home his village got attacked by the rebels. Without knowing if his family is alive or not he has to survive on his own going from village to village.

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The major theme in the story A Long Way Gone is that with family and love a person can make it through anything. Overall Ishmael’s story is a very powerful, eye opening read; it informs people on a subject that some know little to nothing about, the civil war in Sierra Leone. Beah uses the theme of family and love, along with the use of symbolism and other literary devices, to inform a larger audience of the issues that he and others had to face while trying to survive in a war zone. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war.

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