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Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs In A Long Way Gone

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Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in A Long Way Gone Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was evident in Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone. Throughout the novel, the development in Ishmael’s hierarchy of need was together with his development as a character. The development of his hierarchy of needs was directional, developing from physiological needs towards self-actualization. At the beginning of the novel, Ishmael is forced to live a vagrant life because of the war, living in constant hunger and on the verge of death. He was attempting to fulfill his physiological needs by finding and eating anything he can find, “I mounted the coconut tree quite fast and unexpectedly. By the time I realized what I was doing and thought about my inexperience in this …show more content…

Furthermore, as the plot advances, when Ishmael became a rebel and fights in the war, he fought to achieve his need for safety. As he described, “[…] as we had no control over out future. We knew only how to survive.” (Beah 87) During the war, Ishmael killed to survive. The cruel nature of war had left Ishmael in constant fear and miserable for his future. While his physiological needs were morbidly satisfied by his addictive use of drugs, he needed to strive fully to survive the perilous war. Finally, after Ishmael was rescued by UNICEF and sent to a rehabilitation camp, he began his search for the fulfillment of his belonging needs. Traumatized by the cruelty of war, Ishmael was senseless when he arrived at the rehabilitation camp. As he described, “We got more upset day by day and, as a result, resorted to more violence.” (Beah 138) At the camp, Ishmael and other children committed acts of violence to satisfy their mental cravings. Their morals were torn by their horrid experience with war, and they were extending its effects into the rehabilitation camp. However, the staff treated Ishmael’s despicable actions with great forgiveness and understanding. The staff’s forgiving love ultimately transformed Ishmael to

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It was the only way to survive” (Beah 29). Following the outbreak of war, resources were scarce so the boys turned to crime to feed their hunger. The fulfillment's of Ishmael's physiological needs brought him strength to stay safe. During

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His group ends up running into the rebels once more, in this settlement we see them lining people up, not particularly violent yet, but Ishmael already reports “struggling to avoid fainting.” We see this stemming off his baseline reaction, but we see this change since the recruitment of children was very common at that point especially for teenage boys. This is a posing threat for Ishmael and his crew, which is why they must keep moving. This pressure caused Ishmael to have violent, self harm thoughts such as when he “looked at the blades of the machetes and thought about how much it would hurt to be chopped into one.” This is when violence is first seen as non horrific and as a passing thought.

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Ishmael has accept the fact that the war has ruined his enjoyment of meeting new people. Because of him going into villages and being chased out because they believed he was a rebel, Or having to go through other villages because he knew nobody there and he knew what was coming to their village and he did not want to stay had ruined the experience for him until later on in his life. Ishmael's experiences force him to deny his emotional side in order to survive. His flight from RUF attacks on the various villages in Sierra Leone requires him to let go of attachments to family and friends. Although he holds out hope to see his family, he has no choice but to close off himself to the world.

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When the war had just begun, Ishmael was driven to continue by his biological family, “I wanted to see my family, even if it meant dying for them” (Beah 96). As the war continues his biological family drives him in a different way, “I got angrier, because they looked

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787 Words | 4 Pages

(Beah, 122). This fear caused Ishmael to have nothing on his mind except to kill the enemy, it brainwashed him. Although, these experiences turned him into a malicious human. Fear and hope drove Ishmael’s decisions throughout the

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In the novel, “A Long Way Gone,” Ishmael Beah suffers from PTSD due to the exposure to war at such a young age and the rehabilitation process. Ishmael was exposed to guns, drugs and other types of violent acts due to the war at the age of 12. As time went by, Ishmael lost his family and slowly his friends too. Ishmael was traumatized from all the violence he experienced due to the war approaching his village. He had been forced by the Sierra Leone Armed Forces to serve as a child soldier during a civil war and “It was not easy being a soldier, but we just had to do it.

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I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child. We are all brothers and sisters. What I have learned from my experiences is that revenge is not good” (Beah 199). This supports my claim because not only is Ishmael able to openly talk about his trauma from war, he is able to acknowledge how it has taught him many valuable lessons.

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After experiencing the beginning of war, Ishmael remembers something that his father used to say to him, that would help him have hope in his current situation. Ishmael remembers hearing that if he is “ ‘alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing food left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive ” (Beah 54).

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Ishmael was away from his family when the rebels (one side of the war) started to attack his home. Ishmael then had traveled city to city with groups of boys to avoid the rebels, and search for his family. The only thing that was getting Ishmael through the war was that he would see his family again. He couldn’t handle not knowing what had happened to his family so, “[he] decided to just ignore every thought that came to [his] head, because it brought too much sadness… [he] spent most of [his] time fighting [himself] mentally in order to avoid thinking about what [he] had seen or wondering where [his] life was going, where [his] family and friends were.

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I was determined to make it to the end of the war alive" (p. 186). Ishmael’s determination to persist is driven by his fear of mortality. Despite the slim probability of survival, his fear of mortality compelled him to move forward. This forces him out of complacency and acceptance which drives him toward safety. This motivation ultimately enabled him to endure the hazardous conflicts he encounters throughout the story.

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"We were all scared, but there was nothing we could do. We had to walk forward, we had to fight, we had to survive” (Beah Pg 42). This illustrates the tenacity Ishmael had to show to endure as a young soldier in Sierra Leone. Despite his fear and uncertainty, Ishmael knows he must move forward and fight for his life. Ishmael is a prime example of the resilience that can be enforced in the face of even the most traumatic situations, due to his ability to adapt and his dedication to surviving.

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Ishmael says, “I wasn’t sure whether he was unconscious or dead. I didn’t care” (Beah 135). Ishmael is no longer in the war, yet the violence and numbness to it continues. The hell from war made its way into a normal life for Ishmael. He will never be the same Ishmael from before the war.

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1035 Words | 5 Pages

Later, UNICEF came and decided to take Ishmael out of the war and put him in a rehabilitation center. In this part of the novel, the reader can see how his desire for killing has controlled him completely. By fighting and killing rebel members in the rehabilitation center and beating up the guards to force them into doing what the children wants to do, the reader can see that the war has changed their ways of life and thoughts. The army was able to change Ishmael 's desires and from that, he became a deadly

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1198 Words | 5 Pages

The high schoolers have an inaccurate perception of the brutalities of war. Ishmael's purpose in writing this novel was to inform the uneducated on the truth of war. Ishmael's story was a shock to everyone who heard it. Even in his initial speech at the UN, he captivated his audience and showed them the reality of war. His speech to the UN was brief, but every word held immense weight and meaning.

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1016 Words | 5 Pages

Waiting years to see your family again just to see them killed is truly depressing. When Ishmael started to train as a boy soldier, he soon became determined to avenge his family. This is shown when the lieutenant was brainwashing Ishmael, telling them to kill the one that killed their family. Everyone then “got angry and drove [their] knives in and out of the banana trees” (Beah, 112). Ishmael became so bloodthirsty afterwards, and justified it as avenging is family.

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