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Ishmael Beah Character Analysis

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Introduction. What is Child Soldiering? Child Soldiering is the action of taking children away from their families to fight a war with children as young as 8 years old. Ishmael Beah was one of these children. Ishmael had an amazing journey from brutal guerrilla warfare all the back to being a functioning human in society. His journey has been long, dangerous and terrifying. He was forced to kill innocents as a child soldier by the RUF. But, thankfully for him UNICEF came in and rescued him and many other children and taught the how to function in society again.
Transition to child soldier: PHYSICAL. Ishmael Beah was forced to go without sleep, forced drugs, made to walk without shoes when he had deep cuts in his feet. After being taken by the RUF he was forced to grow quickly, forced to kill other people and forcefully brainwashed “We watched war movies while the forced us drugs”(Beah, 60). He was shot, beaten and starved “After I had cried for several hours, my feet became numb. I continued to walk but couldn’t feel the soles of my feet”(Beah, 60), but yet …show more content…

Ishmael felt very lonely while being rehabilitated. His mind would play games with him and give him horrible nightmares of the war “I was beginning to shake. The drugs were wearing off from the previous night”(Beah, 137). He eventually accepted treatment, he smiled for the first time and even got a crush on a nurse named Ester. Many boys would cry to the therapists when they were asked to talk about their experiences. He learned to be happy with his new family who he moved in with and even went out dancing with his cousin, Allie “This is a secret. I want to take you to a dance tonight so you can enjoy yourself”(Beah, 183). Ester showed Ishmael love and happiness, made him smile and care. She showed him what he was missing as a child and Ishmael gave in and regained his compassion and used his past to make him a stronger man than he was before and fuel the act against the

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