In chapter eight of Night, Elie’s father, Shlomo, struggled with inhuman treatment more than once. He became ill and was unable to control where and when he relieved himself. Shlomo had gotten dysentery from drinking the polluted water. The other sick prisoners he was housing with were so displeased, they beat him. “Eliezer… Eliezer… tell them not to beat me… I haven’t done anything… Why are the beating me?”
Ishmael became a victim of the war the moment he became a boy soldier. He was only a young teen at the time, where substances took over his life, as he states, “In the daytime, instead of playing soccer in the village square,
However, many people died during the attack. Next, there was the separation of Ishmael and his friends. When Ishmael and his friends were staying in the village of Kamator, the rebels attacked. This caused Ishmael to become separated from his friends. The attack was too sudden for Ishmael to go look for his friends.
Now, as for Ishmael’s headaches and nightmares, I think it is PTSD. He went through so much as a 12-year-old, and it’s not fair. He keeps getting his hopes up, only to be destroyed. A 12-year-old should not have to worry about if they are going to survive, or if they are going to be captured, or if they are going to get killed. When the rebels surrounded the village and Ishmael had to join the fight to stay alive, I felt like crying.
What can we learn about human nature from the book Night? Human nature is the general psychological characteristics, feelings, and qualities of humankind which determines human behavior and motivation. We can learn that there is a lot of examples of human nature in the book Night like losing hope during desperate times, doing anything for food and going to the extreme for pleasure and sex. Night shows us that human nature will lose hope during desperate times, that they will just give up when they're in pain. For example in Night on page 105 second paragraph, it states “I can't anymore . . .
Night is a very heart-wrenching memoir written by Elie Wiesel. Elie was born 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania which is now part of modern-day Romania (The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity). At the age of fifteen he was transported with his family to Auschwitz. His mother and younger daughter perished while in the labor camp, but his two older sisters survived. (The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity).
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.
Ishmael suffered loss of a place to call home multiple times which caused him to lose his hope for a better tomorrow ,"One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again." (Beah 69) Beah's memoir sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism which directly affected the loss of home.
He undergoes many difficult situations that he either has to live with, or die. He changed from a young, innocent boy to a careless soldier, to a rehabilitated adult due to his war ravaged country. During the war, Ishmael was separated from his family. He had hope throughout the story that one day he would be reunited with his family, this sliver of hope pushed him to keep walking and not give up. Ishmael later witnessed the attack of the village his family was supposedly in and finally found out his family was dead (Beah, 117).
As Ishmael Beah becomes accustomed to the cruel life during war in Sierra Leone, Ishmael learns that ensuring trust within the companions he meets on the battlefield keeps him “human” throughout the duration of the war against the rebels, as is displayed in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. After Ishmael and his brother, Junior escape from a village Junior whispers quietly, “I do not think that this madness will last ... he looked at me as if to assure me that we would soon go home” (Beah 15).
In the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has to overcome his fears and desperation especially when he ends up in villages that dislike little kids because of the assumption that they are rebel soldiers. Sometimes he comes face to face with death like the time when some of the villagers who were suffering the civil war, capture Ishmael and his new accompanied friends they were saying ”We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding. The crowds shouted, drown the rebels”(Beah 38). When the village guards found a rap cassette in Ishmael's pocket they played the music and it pleased the chief and so they were excused from execution and as a result they were offered to also stay in the village for how long they wanted. This part in the story paves a path from Ishmael to talk and although that was one of his major obstacles pertaining to his life he succeeded and faced adversity by pleading that they were not rebels but
I could hear gunshots and screams all around me... I ran for hours without stopping, my chest heaving with exhaustion” (Beah Pg. 29). This shows that even in the most trying situations, it is possible to persevere and triumph. Ishmael has displayed incredible resilience in the face of
Ishmael has a flashback of his life in the war. In his dream he encounters a body wrapped in white bed sheets, and as he unwraps it he realizes it is his own face he is looking at. He then awakens, sweating and on the ground. He says, “I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories” (Beah 19). Even being in a different country cannot take away the hell that Ishmael has been through.
For Mariatu and Ishmael, the war left them both immobile: one physically while the other mentally. Mariatu’s life before the war was by no means perfect. Family issues and naiveness impacted Mariatu’s pre-war world. When the rumors of an
“ You can write the lyrics of the songs you like on the album and we can learn to sing them together, if you want” (Beah 163).Writing down lyrics to songs was one of the things that Ishmael did with his brother and friends before the war. This brings back vivid memories as the songs are inextricably tied with his childhood, and Ishmael finds peace in Esther and she becomes his first friend outside of the war. During rehabilitation Ishmael is struggling through the nightmares of war, but with the help of Esther and music he finds himself once
