The biography, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, tells the story of a thirteen year old boy who spends his childhood being compelled to fight in the civil war in Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah tries to avoid fighting for the rebels by running from town to town with his friends as the rebels advanced. Finally, his luck runs out and Ishmael Baeh is forced to serve in the civil war for the rebels. The story goes on to describe his horrific childhood as a soldier in Sierra Leone and his eventual rescue by Unicef and rehabilitation center. In this passage, Ishmael Beah created a mental image that allows us to visualize how disturbing and how unreal living in wartone Sierra Leone during the early 1980’s.
Forced to flee from rebel forces, Beah becomes separated from his family and embarks on a journey filled with violence, fear, and loss. He is eventually recruited as a child soldier by the government army, where he is trained to fight and becomes brainwashed to the horrors of war. As Beah recounts his time as a child soldier, he describes the brutal realities of combat and the mental toll it takes on him and other soldiers. The book shows
The influence of war on his inner turmoil is exhibited when he encounters the wounded family in the van. This was his first real exposure to the casualties of war. He personifies the ground he stood on. He writes that he felt the ground moving beneath his feet (13). Beah feels as if he no longer stands on solid ground because the world he firmly knew has shifted, leaving him dazed and confused.
In the memoir, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, as the war progresses, the absence of the moon becomes a symbol of the lack of protection and peace in the boys’ world. For instance, Ishmael is so wrapped up in the war he does not take a moment to relax or be at peace in the war. When Ishmael is in the war he does not see the moon as we see in this quote, “Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them”(Beah pg.80). Ishmael is recalling the memories of the war. He recalls that the moon is a sign of hope and peace in this world but during the war he does not see the moon.
A long way gone is a memoir about a young boy named Ishmael Beah whose village was overturned by refugees and had to experience the civil war first hand. A statement that caught my attention on an opininair was “Children have the right to a carefree childhood”. This statement is true because growing up in the United States, most children have fairly common childhoods, school, sports, maybe work but nothing to major. Beah and his friends went through many obstacles to try and avoid the refugees without any lessons or training on how to do so alone. They overcame things that many adults aren’t physically or mentally prepared for.
Hiba Shaqra A Long Way Gone: Typed Reading Log Key Quote Insightful Comment Discussion Question “Perhaps it was necessary he This quote depicts Ishmael’s first Does Ishmael end up cling to false hopes, since they war experience. A child, clearly using this tactic, this had kept him running away dead, had lain in front of him.
The definition of 'home' is different for many people. Some people have no place to call home. To some, home is the place where family is at. To others, home is a state of mind, something completely resting on the beliefs or thoughts of the individual. The general idea of home is a place of safety and stability.
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.
A long way gone, a story written and lived by Ishmael Beah, reveals the incredibly burdensome life lived by child soldiers. Throughout the story, these kids soldiers encounter countless obstacles that, in most cases, kids could never do. Without a sense of some form family, Ishmael, like most other refugees and child soldiers, wouldn’t have been able to make it past childhood. When Ishmael first left to do the talent show and came back to see his village devastated, the mere thought of seeing his family again helped him move forward; along with the presence of his brother Junior and their friend Talloi. The quote “ We must go back and see if we can find our families before it’s too late,” shows how much they cared for their families.
He conveys a very accurate depiction of the brutality and chaos that emerged in Sierra Leone during the war. He shows how young boys were exploited by armed groups. His depiction of the atrocities he has watched and carried out himself is horrifying and deeply upsetting. For example, the image of guns in the book represents the power and control of those who wield them. In his memoir, Beah says, “The corporal gave the signal with a pistol shot and I grabbed the man’s head and slit his throat in one fluid motion,” (Beah).
There are many reasons English teachers should select material to teach important concepts. English is a much more loosely structured class than Calculus or Physics, so there is a great deal of controversy when choosing books for students. While some titles can hold topics that resemble taboos, the experiences of the protagonists in stories of violence, poverty, and extreme struggle can encourage growth of students as learners, thinkers, and human beings. Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone is appropriate for the Sterling High School English IV curriculum because it contains honest and detailed imagery, and because it sparks a reader’s awareness of tragedies that are being forced upon their peers across the globe.
While traveling with his companions as they tried to find shelter in a war-torn Sierra Leone, many of the citizens mistrusted them because “[s]ome had heard rumors about young boys being forced by rebels to kill their families and bur their villages… [t]his was one of the consequences of the civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy” (37). Because of the constant mistrust of Beah and his friends, their life was constantly threatened during their journey while looking for a village to stay at. Often Beah and company “were surrounded by muscular men with machetes who almost killed [them] before they realized that [Beah and his companions] were just children running away from the war…[a]t crowded villages where [they] sometimes stopped to spend the night, the men stayed up to keep an eye on [them]” (57).
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.
“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them,” (Beah 80). During wartime people's values change in order to adapt to the horrifying situation one is placed in. The same occurs in Beah’s A Long way Gone and autobiography of a child soldier's experience in sierra leone. Throughout Beah's journey his values change due to the people around him, the place he is located at and the tragic events a that occur.
It is important to consider factual abortion statistics for the pro abortion and pro life arguments. Abortion fact: there are a startling 42 million abortions worldwide every year. Over a lifetime, that totals about 1 abortion for every woman on the planet, and in fact, nearly 1 in 2 women worldwide will have an abortion in their lifetime. I dont care if youre pro-life or pro-choice, these numbers are sobering. And lets get real for a minute.
