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Book Report On A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

579 Words3 Pages

A Long Way Gone. Ishmael Beah. New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2007. 229 pages. A Long Way Gone is a memoir written with Ishmael Beah’s memories of the civil war that happened in his hometown, Sierra Leone. Beah’s determination for survival and use of descriptive imagery of the war gives us a chance to feel like we’re actually in the war with him. Ishmael Beah was only a twelve year old boy when the war came to his village. Because he lost his family in the war, Ishmael had to learn how to survive on his own along with some other boys. Together, they took care and watched out for each other in the wilderness while trying to find a safe place to hide from the rebels, the people attacking their country. Beah and his friends came close to death multiple times, but because of the rap cassettes he carries with him, it was able to save them every time they were captured by the villagers. At the age of 12, Baeh was forced to fight in the war, which turned him into a killing machine as the years go by-- he didn’t feel anything; just the madness for the rebels who killed his family. At age 16, Baeh was taken out of the frontlines and moved into a …show more content…

If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (page 54). Even though he faced depression and loneliness in the forest for a month, it was this lesson that motivated him to find a way out and stay alive because he believes that regardless the terrible things that had happen to him, there is still some good left in his destiny as long as he’s alive. Because of the loneliness of isolation from people, Beah was willing to spend everyday protecting himself from wild animals and looking for a way out even when he know that there’s a war happening outside the forest. The idea of isolation was too much for a 12 year old to

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A Long Way Gone is Ishmael Beah’s memoir. It retracts all of the tragic events Ishmeal endured while the Sierra Leone civil war occurred. Ishmael was a child who lived an ordinary life until rebels infiltrated his village which left him and others with no choice, but to flee. He was then forced to become a child soldier. This book shows the physical and mental torture Beah had to go through while has was a child soldier.

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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.

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They see nothing wrong with what they do. In 2007, Ishmael Beah published a memoir called “A Long Way Gone” about his time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. When he was twelve, the RUF (rebels) attacked his home village of Mogbwemo while he was in Mattru Jong with his older brother and their friends. The RUF then began to attack neighboring villages, sending Ishmael and his brother running.

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In the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, the importance of family is a very big topic. Ishmael Beah writes so much about family because during his childhood and during his time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, he had many different families. Each of these families that he belonged to had something special about them and offered him something different that also proved to be necessary for him at the time. During his time in Sierra Leone, Beah was part of his many families. His families were: his own family, a group of seven boys that he traveled with, his small squad in the military, Esther from the Benin Home where he was being rehabilitated, his uncle Tommy’s family, and Laura, his mother in the United States.

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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 Theme Essay

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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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