How Does Ishmael Beah Use Literary Devices In A Long Way Gone

In A Long Way gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah explains his life and how he became a child soldier during Sierra Leone's civil war. During recounting his experiences, Beah uses literary devices which include metaphors, similes, personification, and symbolism to communicate his experiences. Before the war, Ishmael Beah was just a boy who enjoyed listening to rap music cassettes with his friends and preparing for the talent show. Ishmael Beah finally narrates the book when he is an adult, he tells us how carrying the tapes throughout the war changed his life. In his memoir, he used many associations with cassette tapes as a motif to show his psychological degradation and rehabilitation throughout his time in the civil war and return

Before the war had started his brother had introduced him to the cassette tapes and he explained how much he cared for them by saying “I loved the dance and particularly enjoyed the lyrics… they were poetic and it improved my vocabulary”(Beah 6). Rap music has affected his psychological state of mind and throughout any point in time, he was feeling emotion. Beah and his brother went on a trip to see their grandmother and mother which was a total of sixteen miles. When they arrived with their grandmother, she made them some food and took care of them. During the time of the war, Beah reflected on his grandmother and her home a lot to try and unfocus on all of the blood and dead bodies he had witnessed back in his hometown. Beah was lying in the bushes and thought about his grandmother's bushes and that“There was a thick forest on one side of the village where my grandmother lived”(Beah 17). Beah uses this to show a comparison between before and during the war that has affected his upcoming through the years. Like cassette tapes, his grandmother is used to comfort him and the absence they both have during the war

The chief believed that they were spies or rebels until the cassette tapes were found, “One of them found a rap cassette in my pocket… He asked for it to be played”(Beah 38). As it was played Beah had to explain to the chief what the cassettes were. The chief released them when a boy recognized them and they went on their way. Cassette tapes have saved Beah and his traveling group's lives many times throughout. When Beah was captured and became a soldier, he lost the tapes in a fire, “I took off my pants which contained the rap cassettes… I ran toward the fire, but the cassettes had already started to melt''(Beah 115). When Beah lost the tapes he and the other boys felt their childhood and innocence being taken away in just a few seconds. The tape’s presence in his life was very strong since they were given to him by his brother Junior. Ishameal used the tape's presence to escape from the reality of what was going on including the war, seeing the bodies, nightmares, headaches, and hopelessness he