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Ishmael Beah's Memoir: A Long Way Gone

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Memoir: A long way gone
“The idea of death didn’t cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water” (127).
At the beginning of the Memoir, A long way gone, Ishmael Beah was the average nice kid. He played with his friends, went to school, made music for fun and more. In the country Beah lived in, Sierra Leone, there was a large war going on for diamonds. The Rebels (RUF) were vicious and destroyed everything in their path to get to their goal. Unfortunately, Beah was one of the many people that suffered in the war. He ran for so long to get away and find safety, just to be caught up in it. Ishmael Beah went from an innocent child to a violent soldier. The main causes that led up to this were when Beah was constantly surrounded …show more content…

At first, he needed someone or something to blame for his family’s death, but the guilt eventually reached him. Beah and a few of his friends had finally reached the village where they would be reunited with their families. Just outside the village, Gasemu had stopped them to talk, it was all fine until they began to see smoke rising from the village. When they reached the village, it was already too late. Beah’s family had been burned in the village and we were able to see his snapping point where Beah began to show a bit of the violence he picked up. Immediately, Beah began to blame Gasemu for his family’s death. “I didn’t know what was happening to me. I got up, walked behind Gasemu, and locked his neck under my arms” (96). Not only did Beah just attack Gasemu and blame him for his family’s death, but he was also not able to think straight and just acted out. This shows that Beah is becoming more violent just from being surrounded by the aftermath of the war as during the beginning of his memoir, he was a very innocent and playful child but now he was randomly attacking and taking his anger out on someone …show more content…

After a while, Beah and even his friends were inspired by the characters from the movies and wanted to use their murder techniques and try it out on the rebels they captured. “We all wanted to be like Rambo; we couldn’t wait to implement his techniques” (121). Since Beah and some of the other soldiers were still children, they could easily be influenced or groomed in a certain way to the army’s liking. This was one-way Beah became more violent as he was manipulated and inspired by the war movie

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A Long Way Gone is Ishmael Beah’s memoir. It retracts all of the tragic events Ishmeal endured while the Sierra Leone civil war occurred. Ishmael was a child who lived an ordinary life until rebels infiltrated his village which left him and others with no choice, but to flee. He was then forced to become a child soldier. This book shows the physical and mental torture Beah had to go through while has was a child soldier.

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When he was twelve, Beah was separated from his family when the rebels attacked his village. Beah’s journey to escape the rebel forces led him through areas where he witnessed the horrors of war and it led him to war as a child soldier. Life as a child soldier left a deep impact on Ishmael Beah. Although, he recovered physically and mentally as children often do, Beah’s writing shows his difficulty in expressing his emotions.

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The fear people encounter gives the rebels with guns and weapons power. Beah explains the fear of guns when he writes, “I prayed that my friends and brother wouldn’t make any sudden moves or even try to scratch an itch. The back of my head was getting warm, as if expecting a bullet anytime” (32). Beahs’ fear for his life and of his families gives the rebel pointing the gun tremendous power over them because it makes the rebel superior at that moment. Beah writes about

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In the chaos and violence of war, the lines between right and wrong become blurred. Beah at the beginning found violence and specifically death disgusting and repulsive but as the novel progresses he turns into a killing machine. Beah’s ability to judge something as morally bad or good was blurred or completely eliminated. What may have been considered immoral in peacetime may be seen as necessary for survival in a warzone. Beah was forced into a position where it was either kill or be killed, he wanted to survive so he killed.

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After the “white tablet” Beah takes to boost his energy before battle wheres off following his return that night, he is faced with an extreme nightmare where Beah dreams, “... I was picking up Josiah from the tree stump and a gunman stood on top of me. He placed his gun on my forehead. I immediately woke up from my dream and began shooting inside the tent” (120). This intense nightmare from Beah shows how war, especially at this young of an age causes extreme difficulties as they take drugs to try to cover up these problems which does not last. Succeeding the wars end, after falling asleep reading the lyrics of a song in rehabilitation,

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The way Beah explained what happened to him, he did it in a sad way. My response to the writer is that I feel sorry for him. I cannot relate to him in any way since I have never been exposed to war and even been a soldier fighting in it. He was strong through the hardest part of his life; the actual war itself, rehabilitation, and ultimately escaping Freetown, Sierra Leone to eventually fly over to New York and start a new life. Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, replays a part of Beah’s life that will always be very vivid to him.

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