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Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In A Long Way Gone

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On Saturday, March 23 the Sierra Leone army came under attack from rebel forces from within the country called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a ruthless group of soldiers led by a former army Sierra Leone corporal, Foday Sankoh. They would do anything to gain control of the country including the enlistment of child soldiers, and they had the upper hand until the army followed their strategy and drafted children themselves (Fyfe and Davidson). Many of the child soldiers suffered a lot of physical and psychological trauma from the war including a young boy named Ishmael Beah. In A Long Way Gone, Beah’s recounting of his experiences in the war, portrays the loss of innocence and hope in child soldiers due to the effects of war.
Throughout the course of the novel, Ishmael portrays the loss of innocence in himself and the kids around him. Before the war, Ishmael was an optimistic young boy with a passion for …show more content…

“Before I shot each man, I looked at him and saw how his eyes gave up hope and steadied before I pulled the trigger. I found their somber eyes irritating” (Beah 192). Most children would not have to face the possibility of killing a person, Ishmael used to be an optimistic young boy with a passion for rap music before the war. However, the child soldiers eventually grew accustomed to the horrors of war and some even grew to enjoy the task of killing others. One young boy stated, "I didn’t have the mind to kill someone initially…but later on I enjoyed the wicked acts…I was responsible for killing anybody that was assigned to die" (Myriam 795). The children soon saw ambushing villages as a game, where the person that killed the most was considered a hero. They

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625 Words | 3 Pages

He idea (false hope), to from harm (Page 13)”. attempts to understand the push through the reasoning behind why one war? If so… how? pretends all is well, even though the opposite is true. Ishmael had not yet been introduced to the tragedies that would come with war.

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715 Words | 3 Pages

As mentioned before in chapter 1 his interest in the appearance of moon. For the past couple of years Ishmael has been trained how to be a soldier, he has learned many thing like learning how to survive, fight, and kill. After learning all of this he has been able to break through his self conscious with the help of Esther and Leslie. Ishmael has regained his past common knowledge of his family history. He remembers his conversation between his grandmother and him about an important lesson she gave him, about how the spiritual world and real world connect.

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704 Words | 3 Pages

Ishmael has accept the fact that the war has ruined his enjoyment of meeting new people. Because of him going into villages and being chased out because they believed he was a rebel, Or having to go through other villages because he knew nobody there and he knew what was coming to their village and he did not want to stay had ruined the experience for him until later on in his life. Ishmael's experiences force him to deny his emotional side in order to survive. His flight from RUF attacks on the various villages in Sierra Leone requires him to let go of attachments to family and friends. Although he holds out hope to see his family, he has no choice but to close off himself to the world.

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110 Words | 1 Pages

War is the graveyard of innocence for boys who become men through the loss of humanity. The book “Fallen Angels,” by Walter Dean Myers, is a story about Richard Perry, a young man who mistakenly joins the Vietnam War to avoid the shame of not going to college. As the book goes on Perry discovers his mistake and in the process, not only loses his innocence, but also his humanity. Wars will always be the dark parts of our history and no war is devoid of horrors that can strip anyone of everything they are, and in war soldiers must use coping mechanisms to deal with these very apparent horrors.

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787 Words | 4 Pages

Later, the soldiers told Ishmael and many other people they had a choice to be in the army or to go out on their own. Ishmael feared if he did not become a soldier he would end up getting killed by the rebels. This fear reflected his decision on becoming a solider. “The idea of death didn’t cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water. My mind had not only snapped during the first killing, it had also stopped making remorseful records, or so it seemed.”

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501 Words | 3 Pages

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is a memoir of his experiences as a soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a country in West Africa that had a civil war that lasted from 1991 till 2002. The war started when Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attempted to overthrow the Joseph momoh government. The war resulted in over 50,000 deaths. During the civil war, children as young as seven years old were recruited to serve in the army but they weren't really recruited at all, they were threatened to join or they would be killed or kidnapped.

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542 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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405 Words | 2 Pages

More than 200,000 children are soldiers (Gettleman, 2010, 1). The issue of child soldiers came to worldwide attention when Ishmael Beah wrote his book A Long Way Gone: Memoir of a Child Soldier. Ever since then it has been continually debated, and researched. Rebel groups like the LRA and also some government troops abduct children from their homes. These children are forced into war before they’ve lost all their baby teeth, or had their first crush.

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775 Words | 4 Pages

Memories “Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose”(Arnold). In the book a long way gone a boy named Ishmael beah tells his story. In this novel Ishmael’s village is eventually raided and he becomes on his own. Through being on his own he thinks of the past and memories of a better life. These memories that he thinks of can hinder him and help him along the way through his journey.

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641 Words | 3 Pages

In conclusion Ishmael was going insane because he was alone he had no one to talk to and he couldn’t sleep at all. The second most important scene in “a long way gone” is when ishmael was capture by the army and ishmael becomes this kid that has no feelings he was just like a killing machine. This is an important moment in the memoir because now ishmael knows the other side of the story that most of the soldiers were taking drugs that’s why they were like killing machines. One quote from the book that exemplifies this aspect of the book is “in the daytime instead of playing soccer in the village square, i took turns at the guarding post around the village, smoking marijuana and sniffing brown cocaine mixed with gunponder.(121) This quote is important because it shows the reader what they were giving them to stay awake and don’t feel anything, it also shows what ishmael had

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498 Words | 2 Pages

"We were all scared, but there was nothing we could do. We had to walk forward, we had to fight, we had to survive” (Beah Pg 42). This illustrates the tenacity Ishmael had to show to endure as a young soldier in Sierra Leone. Despite his fear and uncertainty, Ishmael knows he must move forward and fight for his life. Ishmael is a prime example of the resilience that can be enforced in the face of even the most traumatic situations, due to his ability to adapt and his dedication to surviving.

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1110 Words | 5 Pages

Ishmael witnesses many of these killings. For example, Ishmael watches a mother carrying her dead child whom “...had been shot dead as she ran for her life” (Beah 13). This mother is forced out of her home and loses her child due to the war. The

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1035 Words | 5 Pages

”(Beah, 112). The corporal uses the rebels as a way to control the children 's emotions and use them for himself. He makes Ishmael’s desire start to transition towards creating destruction. Later, Ishmael and his friend’s enter into the battlefield. During this time, Ishmael kills his first victim and his desire completely turns into killing sprees.

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1084 Words | 5 Pages

The wide spectrum for the desire to own resources in many countries has produced a raging armed conflict. For instance, developing countries like, Africa are the most vulnerable to face constant wars due to the lack of resources. Consequently, a new source is being used to battle the rivalries for the reoccurring conflict. Ismael Beah’s book, A Long Way Gone, reveals in detail that child soldiers are the newest source used in the armed conflict. His book, also demonstrates his experience as a child soldier, fighting for the Sierra Leone Armed Services at the age of twelve.

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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.

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