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A Long Way Gone Essay

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In the memoir A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier written by author and activist Ishmael Beah, Ishmael tell his story about his gruesome and regretful time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Ishmael was born in Sierra Leone where he lived his childhood along with his family. His family had consisted of his mom, dad, and two brothers. Growing up Ishmael had a normal childhood surrounded by family traditions, hearing stories told by his grandmother, and playing soccer almost daily with his friends. Unfortunately, when the war had hit his hometown, a village called Mogbwemo, he was separated from his family. Before the series of attacks had reached his hometown he was living with his dad due to the fact that his parents were divorced. He …show more content…

He is doing this by working with UNICEF, doing talks on awareness for children soldiers, and he has created the Ishmael Beah foundation. This foundation he created has helped many children soldiers with regenerating back into society. The same way that UNICEF helped him get back to the accustoms of a normal life. Currently he is a father of 4 year old daughter and lives in Nigeria, where he spends a lot of time writing. He graduated from Oberlin College where he spent the time writing this book. He acknowledged the professors and people who were involved who help him write A Long Way Gone. He has written and published a book called A Radiance of Tomorrow which is a novel. He is currently working on getting two other books published that he has written. “Beah tells EW. ‘And each time I embark on a new project, I write as if it is the first and last thing that I will ever write’...we also have another memoir in the works with Beah”(Biedenharn). Ishmael continues to inspire many as they read his troubling yet inspiring books as they realize what many children go through as they fight for their lives as child soldiers. Although Ishmael had to live as a child soldier for 2 years, has managed to turn a traumatic life experience to bring

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Ishmael Beah was born in the village of Mogbwemo in Sierra Leone in 1980. The Civil War in Sierra Leone displaced Ishmael and resulted in him becoming a child soldier for the Sierra Leonean Armed Forces. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier chronicles the physical and psychological horrors of war and Ishmael’s subsequent return to society. While visiting a neighboring village with his brother and a group of friends, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) pillaged Mogbwemo.

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A long way home by Ishmael Beah. Ishmale Beah was born the 23 of November 1980 at Mogbwemo,Bonthe District, Sierra leone. the reason why he wrote Along Way Gone cause he is talking about as a child soldier during sierra Leones decade-long civil war from 1991 to 2002. this memoir, or collection of Beahs memories of that time, choronicles the attack on Beahs village, his subsequent confusion as he wanders the area looking for food and shelter, his indoctrination or brainwashing as an unwilling child soldier, and the period after his. The reason why escape from his home country to his arrival in the United States cause his place had got attacked by some soldiers.

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Family: You Never Know What You Have Until it is Gone Throughout the memoir “A Long Way Gone”, Ishmael told how he lost his family in war, through this experience he realized that his family is crucial to his happiness and well being, he also learned that he could form other family bonds with different people. “I wanted to see my family, even if it meant dying with them” (Beah 109). The definition of a family is not limited to blood relation, other loved ones can be family as well.

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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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What is the meaning of adversity? Adversity is the difficulties, misfortunes, and sometimes even trials one must face in order to jump over an obstacle. WWll, holocaust, Racism are all adversities that pertain to individuals and events in the past and the present. One of the events that happened was in Sierra Leone and it was a Civil war between different African tribes. This event is explained through the eyes of the main character in the book “A Long Way Gone”, and his name is Ishmael Beah.

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In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Beah is an adolescent whose innocence is stripped away at the hands of war. At the age of 13, Beah is forced to fight in the war in order to survive, or give up his battle and die. As a result, Beah ultimately decides to join the war. The harsh violence that Beah is exposed to strips him of his innocence and leaves him helpless and alone with his mind keeping him awake at night trying to unsee the cruelness he has been exposed to. Beah utilizes flashbacks, symbolism, and nature motifs in order to address the loss of his innocence throughout the novel.

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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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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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In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael experiences the war age of twelve and travels to find safer place from war. We encounter the changes in Ishmael’s identities as a boy, a soldier, and a civilian boy throughout

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Later, UNICEF came and decided to take Ishmael out of the war and put him in a rehabilitation center. In this part of the novel, the reader can see how his desire for killing has controlled him completely. By fighting and killing rebel members in the rehabilitation center and beating up the guards to force them into doing what the children wants to do, the reader can see that the war has changed their ways of life and thoughts. The army was able to change Ishmael 's desires and from that, he became a deadly

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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: War and Rehabilitation Following the life of Ishmael Beah in his autobiography, A Long Way Gone, readers experience how a young boy adjusted to drastic changes in lifestyles. The first- and perhaps more marked- change in lifestyle was when he became a child soldier in the Sierra Leone Army. The second was when he was taken away to be rehabilitated by UNICEF. Although there are several important components in both Ishmael’s life at war and his life during rehabilitation, it is his relationship with fear, how he deals with trauma, and his character in general which significantly share resemblances in each of the two mentioned lifestyles.

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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.

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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 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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