ipl-logo

Character Analysis: A Long Way Gone

478 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Conclusion about youth violence

Imagine your home being burnt before your eyes, your family unjustly slaughtered, witnessing innocent people shot without reason, imagine being behind the trigger. Experiencing traumatic events such as these will negatively affect anyone’s character. Ishmael Beah, a child in Sierra Leone, experienced just that. In A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah uses his life story do demonstrate how childhood and innocence are not synonymous. Many believe that youth somehow gives an unlimited supply of innocence, but Ishmael’s story argues otherwise. This is because after experiencing a traumatizing environment, his character has changed, from an innocent boy to a violent soldier. Ishmael and his friends are running from the rebels. They are just one step ahead of them, yet in the midst of a situation he realizes that, “The sky was at its bluest..My eyes widened, a smile forming on my face. Even in the middle of the madness there remained a true and natural beauty, and it took my mind away from my current situation.”(Beah 59) Ishmael manages to take his mind off of what he is experiencing and focus on the natural beauty around him. This shows the magnitude of Ishmael’s innocence before becoming involved as a soldier. Ishmael is at the army’s current base and is reflecting on his feelings about the enemy. He angrily thinks how, “Whenever I looked at rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many as I could.”(Beah 122) The pain and sadness Ishmael first felt after losing his family has morphed into uncontrollable anger after becoming a soldier. He …show more content…

Ishmael’s description of his three years as a soldier proves that every human is capable of committing horrible acts. Anyone who does so will eventually change the basis of their character and

Show More
Related
1289 Words | 6 Pages

A fair age to become a soldier In a long way gone written by Ishmael Beah he’s a child soldier and he faces many challenges along the way.

Read More
1294 Words | 6 Pages

6 PG. 37) Also another main focus could be, just because something you been through was bad, doesn’t mean that effect would be negative. Meaning, Ishmael didn’t know what to expect once becoming a boy soldier. However he was given drugs at a young age, to let nothing bother him and stopping him from doing his duties.

Read More
884 Words | 4 Pages

Also, rhetorical devices were not incorporated lightly. On page 108, Ishmael said, “[h]e smiled at us, lifted his gun, and fired several rounds toward the sky. We dropped to the ground, and he laughed at us as he went back inside.” Irony became common in this book when the war broke out. Lives were turned around, and people were not being themselves; Ishmael, at the age of twelve, became addicted to cocaine, marijuana, and brown-brown (a mix of cocaine and gunpowder).

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

In the text, Ishmael is faced with having to fight in the war starting at only 12 years old. Along the way, he finds other boys the same age as him or even younger. Ishmael faces the struggle of losing his family and his sense of safety in the war. Ishmael lost many things whilst being in a war, one of which being his family.

Read More
888 Words | 4 Pages

Ishmael is now alone, before he knows it he is abducted by army soldiers. Ishmael is given two abstruse choices to pick from. He can either walk away, but risk the chance of getting shot. Or he can serve for the army and gain the privileges of shelter, food, and safety. On page 87, Ishmael describes himself feeling dejected and downgraded.

Read More
657 Words | 3 Pages

In the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has to overcome his fears and desperation especially when he ends up in villages that dislike little kids because of the assumption that they are rebel soldiers. Sometimes he comes face to face with death like the time when some of the villagers who were suffering the civil war, capture Ishmael and his new accompanied friends they were saying ”We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding. The crowds shouted, drown the rebels”(Beah 38). When the village guards found a rap cassette in Ishmael's pocket they played the music and it pleased the chief and so they were excused from execution and as a result they were offered to also stay in the village for how long they wanted. This part in the story paves a path from Ishmael to talk and although that was one of his major obstacles pertaining to his life he succeeded and faced adversity by pleading that they were not rebels but

Read More
867 Words | 4 Pages

By sharing his own experiences, Beah is able to show his audience the consequences of war with an incredibly impactful way; one that can only be delivered through personal experience. One example of this is when Ishmael talks about slitting a man’s throat, during his time as a soldier: “His Adam’s apple made way for the sharp knife, and I turned the bayonet on its zigzag edge as I brought it out. His eyes rolled up and they looked me straight in the eye before they suddenly stopped in a frightened glance, as if caught by surprise” (Beah 125). This passage shows how brainwashing has affected the life of Ishmael, as it did to hundreds of child soldiers, and how ruthlessness became a part of their lifestyle. In America, the average fifteen year old’s biggest problems are grades or school work, but in these areas of war and devastation, childhoods are being ripped away and kids have to worry about killing and

Read More
816 Words | 4 Pages

War is a terrifying occurrence to be a part of but for most people, it is not part of their daily lives, and only know of it from history books and movies; But in Some countries, war is a part of people's daily lives. In his nonfiction memoir, Ishmael Beah develops his purpose to educate people on how war is not as cool as it seems through the use of being numb to emotion and drugs. Numbness to emotion is prominent in the novel. Ishmael has become a child soldier for the government and is now getting ready to kill a prisoner they captured. Ishmael writes, “The corporal gave the signal with a pistol shot and [he] [grabs] the man's head and slit his throat…” “...

Read More
875 Words | 4 Pages

In one night Ishmael went from being a happy little boy to a lonely boy who is running for his life. After becoming captured by the soldiers they forced him to fight in war. During the war Ishmael faced conflicts and had to make tough choices that would impact his life. Conflict theory states that society is in a state of perpetual conflict due to competition, and limited resources (Staff Investopedia, 2018). This theory applies to Ishmael Beah

Read More
1572 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More
1261 Words | 6 Pages

Another event that was probably his final turn before deciding to become a violent child soldier. In chapter 11, Ishmael has just lost his family and blames Gasemu and tries to kill him, “walked behind Gasemu and locked his neck under my arm. I squeezed him as hard as I could” (Beah 96). this quote demonstrates how Ishmael is willing to kill now for revenge as the quote did not show any hesitation from Ishmael. As shown in the article Child soldiers battle traumas in Congo rehab, it reads, “the children, they go back to their villages and they tell other children carrying a gun is not the way” (Nima).

Read More
1212 Words | 5 Pages

Ishmael was troublesome to his family but he followed ethical behavior based on learning from his family. His squad took a little boy’s two boiled ears of corn while they were suffering for foods. The boy’s mother gave them more corns later, he “felt guilty about it for a few minutes. ”(31) Ishmael is separated with his brother later and forms a

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
672 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
946 Words | 4 Pages

(1991-2002) Ishmael’s story solely focused on the years he was affected by the war. (1992-1997) The tale begins when with Beah, his brother, and a couple of his friends, heading to another village to put on a performance and while away, they catch wind that their village had been attacked by the RUF (Revolutionary United Front). The boys' having no home to go back to, wander from village to village looking for shelter and safety.

Read More

More about Character Analysis: A Long Way Gone

Open Document