Examples Of Perseverance In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

Perseverance is the act of continuing to do something despite difficulty or obstacles. As Marie Curie said “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained”. In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, a long way gone, he demonstrates that only through suffering does one learn a valuable lesson about life. Throughout Ishmael’s journey he loses everything he had. He loses his family which meant everything to him, he loses his childhood and what made him who he was and finally he loses himself and who he once was. Throughout the story, Ishmael loses his family multiple times and has to keep pushing forward

He is scared because he does not know where his family is or if they are even alive. He pushes on despite how he is feeling, he faces so many challenges with his friends and continues to try and keep going which shows just how strong he is despite the loss of his family. He perseveres and through that he learns a valuable key life lesson that only through his suffering and the loss of his family does he make it out and everything ends up okay. Secondly, Ishmael finds out that his family is still alive and is on a journey back to find them, just as he finds them, he watches them die. At the Benin Home he is talking to Esther about how he feels. "I feel as if there is nothing left for me to be alive for," I said slowly. "I have no family, it is just me. No one will be able to tell stories about my childhood” (167). Ishmael learns that his family is still alive and begins the journey back to see them. Just as he gets there he hears gunshots and sees lots of smoke in the air. He hears the screams of the village people. He learns that his family is dead. Not only did he lose them once when he did not know what had happened to them but he lost them again when he had to watch and listen to them die. Yet once again he preserves and pushes on despite the amount of pain he was in. He then realizes that only through his suffering did he gain something valuable, a new family. Finally, after everything that had happened, Ishmael

Ishmael’s childhood races by him without him knowing, he loses his interests and the things he once loved. “We had been fighting for over two years, and killing had become a daily activity. I felt no pity for anyone. My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen” (126). Ishmael loses his childhood, he was so young when all of this started it was unbelievable. No child or anyone for that matter should ever have to endure what he did. He should have been playing with toys, enjoying his cassette tapes and performing his rap but instead he was on the run and became a rebel unwillingly. He had been through so much that it felt like his heart had stopped, he did not care about anyone or anything anymore. He lost all of that, it just sped by him. But he never gave up, he kept fighting and believing and through all of that loss and suffering he gained his childhood back. Furthermore, Ishmael loses the ability to be a child. He is constantly having nightmares about things no child should begin to imagine. He is no longer who he once was. “The following morning, we started speaking to each other as if awakened from a nightmare or a dream that had given us a different take on life and the situation we were in” (36). Ishmael’s entire view on life had changed. He was no longer a kid, no longer someone who did not have to worry