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Symbols In A Long Way Gone

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How would you feel if you were forced into warfare at the young age of thirteen as a revenge to your entire family’s death? In Ishmael Beah’s novel A Long Way Gone, Beah tells the story of his life as a child soldier in the Sierra Leone Army following Sierra Leones invasion by the Revolutionary United Front, as well as his long journey of rehabilitation following the war. Ultimately, the cruelty of the war in Sierra Leone causes Beah to obtain relationships with many symbols in his life, including his cassette tapes, the moon, as well as his dreams and nightmares.

Throughout Beah’s time as a child soldier, his humanity would be represented through his cassette tapes as he has a true love for music. Before the war, Beah and a group of friends …show more content…

After being forcefully brought into the war, while Beah puts on his new army attire, a soldier throws his rap cassettes into a fire to burn his belongings and after this occurs, Beah states, “I ran toward the fire, but the cassettes had already started to melt. Tears formed in my eyes, and my lips shook as I turned away” (110). This shows how much his rap cassettes mean to him as through a powerful use of imagery, tears formed in his eyes and his lip shook, as he was extremely sad and angry that the soldier does this. After Beah is removed from the war and sent to the Benin Home on the outskirts of the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, for rehabilitation, Beah meets a nurse by the name of Esther. After Esther becomes closer with Beah, she gives Beah a gift, as Beah states, “She knew what i wanted. She gave me the Bob Marley cassette and the Walkman, along with a …show more content…

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, Beah has a nightmare where he runs home for dinner with his brother Junior from the river to find that no one was around when gets home. After arriving he is in the dark when he finds a lamp and is surrounded by men that all have guns and knives where Beah exclaims, “They began to shoot, stab, and slice each other’s throats. But they would rise and then get killed again. Their blood began to fill the room… They wailed, causing me great anguish” (164). This somber nightmare from Beah shows the oppression he faces from the war as he has killed men by shooting, stabbing, and slicing their throats as well, just as the men around him do in the nightmare. In conclusion, the oppression of the

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Ishmael Beah had grown up in Mogbwemo, Sierra Leone, a tight knit community where he was always surrounded by people who cared about him. Sierra Leone was always pleasant place to live until the chaos of the Civil War attacked the village. “The first time that [Ishmael] was touched by the war [he] was twelve… [He] left home with Junior, [his] older brother, and [their] friend Talloi… to go to the town of Mattru Jong to participate in [their] friends’ talent show” (Beah, 6). The war hit Mogbwemo very unexpectedly, “Since [Ishmael and his friends] intended to return the next day, [they] didn’t say goodbye or tell anyone where [they] were going.

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This can be seen when Beah says, “Suddenly, as if someone was shooting them inside my brain, all of the massacres I had seen since the day I was touched by the war began flashing in my head.” (Beah 119) Second, Beah became angry, infuriated even, with the war, and it only made his lust for revenge even stronger. With his anger, the fear that he had in the beginning had vanished, as seen when he says,

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This is by drugs and brainwashing from his superiors, but also by missing his family and wanting revenge. Beah went into the army with bad intentions but found the truth in retrospect saying, “I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end...”(Beah 199). Beah loves his family so much that he will kill to avenge them. His love of family, even if this is not morally right, makes him want to stay alive and kill everyone that is relatively related to the deaths of his family. Even though killing people isn't the best way to go about revenge, it shows how far

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There was a moment in which a switch flicked after his first kill and killing became a lot easier. While in the army Beah was on many drugs including the Zaza, Brown Brown (Nose candy mixed with boom boom powder), and Pookie. Furthermore, Beah's narrative shows that moral judgments cannot always be made from an outside perspective. Those who have yet to experience war may not fully understand the ethical complexities that arise in such situations. Sympathy is very important when it comes to making moral assessments of others.

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Throughout the review, Beah talks about how he lost his innocence as he transformed from a little boy growing up in Sierra Leone to a child warrior. The reviewer says, “It is a vision of hell that Beah gives us.” This detail encaptures the hardship that Beah had to go through, with hatred violence and hostility instilled into him. In addition

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His story offers a powerful example of the importance of resilience and hopes in overcoming hurdles in one's situation. Ishamel’s bravery as a child soldier also brings attention to the damaging impacts of war on children and the need for more empathy and understanding for those affected by it. This is important for the story because, in the end, Beah's resilience serves as an inspiration to everyone who has faced adversity by showing that even the most difficult obstacles can be overcome with the proper mindset and

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Not experiencing war is a luxury many people unfortunately do not get; however, Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone, lives and survives the war, though not without heartache. With war there is always fear, death, and hell. Ishmael Beah proves war is hell through the killing of civilians, the distrust, and the after effects of the war. Ishmael proves war is hell through the killing of civilians. Many innocent bystanders of the war are forced out of their homes, made to run for their lives.

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One would think that dreams would soothe Beah too, but for him, they only bring fear, angst, and sadness. The first dream the audience hears about takes place years in the future, when Beah is living a calm life in New York City. He is pushing a wheelbarrow holding a dead body and writes, “I lift the cloth from the body’s face. I am looking at my own” (Beah, 2013, p. 32). This dream is very important because it displays the idea that even years after the war, Beah is still affected by the memories of past events.

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He uses the childhood memories associated with the music on the cassettes as a way to cope with the terrible things he experienced. Much later in the story, when Beah is forced to join the army, the cassettes are brought up to symbolize the death of his childhood. To get rid of the boy's past, the military sets a fire to all their clothes and

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(Conclusion) Ishmael Beah narrated his personal experience from an honest point of view. By doing so, he enabled the reader to understand everything he chose to explain head on, with no barriers. The reader was able to know what Beah went through, in his own words. “I began to cry quietly and all of a sudden felt dizzy,” (Beah 34). The readers were able to understand how he felt in certain situations.

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