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The book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a memoir about himself involved in war as a child. War began happening in Ishmael’s hometown in Sierra Leone, which was Mogbwemo, so everyone broke apart and he lost his family, except for his brother. He had to start running away from the war to stay alive, so he went with some of his friends and his brother into different provinces of Sierra Leone. They went from village to village looking for food, shelter and safety. Ishmael was caught many times by the army and he thought he was stuck with them forever, but he escaped many different ways.
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.
BOOK REPORT A Long Way Gone Part I: Summary A Long Way Gone is a memoir by Ishmael Beah about his experiences as a child soldier during the Sierra Leone Civil War. The book begins with Beah's childhood in Sierra Leone, where he has a relatively peaceful life with his family until the war reaches his village.
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.
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.
ALWG Imagery Feeling weary and distraught, Ishmael Beah, in his memoir A Long Way Gone, struggles to deal with the newly unprincipled, barbarous country of Sierra Leone, which causes him to feel despondent; this is depicted through natural imagery. To emphasize, Beah speaks about his last visit to Kamator and what he witnessed: “Dogs were feasting on the burnt remains if the imam. One dog had his arm and the other his leg. Above, vultures circled” (46).
Most people live a relatively normal day to day life even if we may have our share of mundane problems. If we are asked to describe our emotions, at the very least we can say happy or sad or fine. When we truly love something or take great pleasure in something, most of us tend to wax poetically. In contrast, there are people like Ishmael Beah whose lives started off quite normal but then it took a major wrong turn. From the tender age of ten years, Beah witnessed the horrors of war in his home country, Sierra Leone.
A long way gone is a memoir about a young boy named Ishmael Beah whose village was overturned by refugees and had to experience the civil war first hand. A statement that caught my attention on an opininair was “Children have the right to a carefree childhood”. This statement is true because growing up in the United States, most children have fairly common childhoods, school, sports, maybe work but nothing to major. Beah and his friends went through many obstacles to try and avoid the refugees without any lessons or training on how to do so alone. They overcame things that many adults aren’t physically or mentally prepared for.
A Long Way Gone is an autobiography written by Ishmael Beah, the book details his childhood throughout the Sierra Leon civil war. The book shows how you can turn an innocent child into a killing machine. We see both sides of the warring party do this with them drugging the children, turning them against the enemy with propaganda and threatening them with death. These are the factors that made a quarter of all the soldiers within this war under the age of eighteen.
As a victim of the violence, a young man who has lost his family he suffers more than simple physical pain, he feels the loss of home. The anguish of losing his family and home is compounded by the uncertainty each day brings. Although they attempt to find a safe haven, the boys know from bitter experience that no such place seems to exist in Sierra Leone.
Throughout his experience in the civil war of Sierra Leone, Beah was alone. He emphasizes intensity in silence to communicate a feeling of abandonment and a lack of mental, physical, and emotional support. Students must think critically to completely interpret the author’s literal and metaphorical use of imagery. Likewise, Beah spends a large portion of his struggle in the African Jungle.
Whenever I speak at the United Nations, UNICEF, or elsewhere to raise awareness of the continual and rampant recruitment of children in wars around the world, I come to realize that I still do not fully understand how I could possibly have survived the civil war in my country, Sierra Leone. I need to put in a quote. The book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is an extremely powerful memoir written by Ishmael Beah. It tells the true story of his own experiences as a child soldier during the huge civil war in Sierra Leone. It is seen as a heartbreaking but still eye-opening account of the true horrors of war and the true resilience of the human spirit.
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.
Kali Griffin Ms D’Ambrosia English 9H II 15 March 2024 Ishmael’s Recovery Hope is possible in any situation because hope is not a fact, rather it is a positive outlook to encourage you to keep moving forward. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is an inspiring yet eye-opening memoir about Ishamael’s experience as a child refugee. Although Ishmael has been through things that no normal child has been through, there is still hope for him to live an ordinary, happy life. Despite the fact that war comes with horror and tragedy, with the right help, Ishmael can recover and move past it. After Ishmael gets settled in with his new family, he is offered to do a speech at an event about child refugees.
All survivors from 21st century wars have traumatic memories that people can sympathize for and stories that are cringe worthy. Two 21st century war autobiographies that exemplify how gruesome the war was in Sierra Leone, Africa are The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. These real accounts from children who grew up during these hard times give insight on how the standards of life have changed.
