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The Role Of Music In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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In A Long Way Gone the author, Ishmael Beah, finds himself in a struggle to stay alive after the Sierra Leonean Civil War kills his family, and he is forced to become a child soldier. Throughout the memoir, music plays an integral role in Ishmael’s life. It keeps him out of trouble as a child, before he is affected by the civil war, and it saves his life, giving him hope during his quest to survive. Music also plays an integral part of my life. While music has never saved my life, as music did for Ishmael, it has become my life’s purpose. I thirst to study and to play music professionally in order to continue to pave the way forward as the previous generation did as well as to fulfill my life’s passion. A song that has proven to be meaningful …show more content…

This is exemplified after Kamator, the village in which Ishmael is staying, is attacked by the rebels. “For five days, I walked from dusk to dawn, never coming into contact with any human being. My goal was to avoid walking in the direction I had come” (Beah 46). Ishmael parallels workers in All Love is Lost because after the attack on Kamator, he is forced to flee, leaving behind his friends and family. He has no reason to be hopeful because the rebels destroyed all that was precious to him. Consequently, Ishmael decides to leave Kamator, to distance himself from his past by removing all physical connections to it. However, he, like the workers, has nowhere to run because he has no family and no final destination. The second half of the first verse of All Love is Lost--“We will arm them to the teeth, to fight, to fight the war on peace”-- is in reference of how the media and politicians make average citizens take up arms, in the form of words and ideologies or actually weapons, to further their agendas. This is an integral theme of the memoir because Ishmael must become a child soldier Higgins 3 and fight to further his commander's’ goals of defeating the rebels and protecting the state.

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A Long Way Gone, is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah. Ishmael was born in Sierra Leone and grew up during the civil war in Sierra Leone. In, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael tells the reader his experiences as a boy soldier and his experiences in rehabilitation in order to regain his humanity. The book begins with Ishmael answering questions to his high school friends, in New York, about his time in the war.

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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,

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These three core topics stay the same yet, as Ishmael’s response changes we see how deeply the war is affecting him. As we make our final round back to the beginning, to see the young boy Ishmael was once again. Right before the war finally hits Beah’s village we see some refugees come into the village, trying the wreckage of the war. This is where Ishmael’s first opinion on war formulates, or at least shown. “At times I thought

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In Ishmael Beah’s personal memoir, A Long Way Gone, music courses through the story quite often. Music is first seen in Ishmael’s peaceful childhood. He and his friends enjoy singing and dancing along to music, in particular, Rap Music. As the story progresses, and the war becomes more prevalent in the young boys lives, rap continues to play a substantial role in their lives, just in a different way. At the end of Ishmael’s life story, there is yet another role that music plays.

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Ishmael being born as a villager, the most important thing for him was to know his wild life and greenery, Ishmaels Grandparents were brought up a lot for how they taught him of plants and medicine. The period where Ishmael became lost in the forest and depressing thoughts clouded his mind, really goes to show how lonely times were for him and how hard it was to deal with all of the family lost and war. Ishmael's only way of staying alive and safe from the gangs that went from town to town killing, burning, raping and destroying villagers along with their homes, was running

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What is the meaning of adversity? Adversity is the difficulties, misfortunes, and sometimes even trials one must face in order to jump over an obstacle. WWll, holocaust, Racism are all adversities that pertain to individuals and events in the past and the present. One of the events that happened was in Sierra Leone and it was a Civil war between different African tribes. This event is explained through the eyes of the main character in the book “A Long Way Gone”, and his name is Ishmael Beah.

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In the beginning of his journey, Ishmael would sometimes overstay at villages and suffer from rebel attacks. Through his journey with his family of boys, he learns to move frequently to avoid being raided. After a village feeds Ishmael, he leaves quickly, “We thanked them for their generosity and left. We knew that the rebels would eventually reach the village” (39). Traveling with many other boys let Ishmael pick up good habits.

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Murderer. When you think about this word, the first thing that pops into your mind wouldn’t be a child, but for many around the world, this is the case. Over 300,000 children fight in wars around the world, slaughtering person after person without mercy. Ishmael Beah’s a long way gone is about the author’s first-hand experience of the 10 – year civil war in Sierra Leone, in which he was turned into one of these brutal, savage killers and then later rehabilitated. In the beginning of the book, young Ishmael, who is about 12 years old at the time, travels to a city called Mattru Jong with his brother, Junior, to participate in a talent show, where they learn that their village was attacked by a rebel group.

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Ishmael who is the author of the book was a twelve year old boy who grew up in Mogbwemo. He was brave, dependent and tenacious throughout the novel. He wanted to rediscover the happiness he had as a child and the joy he had even through his life was a burden. He lived in three worlds his dreams, and the experiences of his new life, which triggered memories from the past (Beah, 2008). Due to war hitting his town it caused him to become and orphan.

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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.

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War is a devastating site to witness for anyone, but imagine being child in the middle of a civil war having to decide whether to kill or be killed. A twelve year old boy named Ishmael Beah, along with many other children, faced this challenge during the Sierra Leone Civil War. He later wrote about his journey in his memoir A Long Way Gone. Ishmael’s story consists of a conflict between the government and rebels.

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Additional Activity 1 In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the reader can gather certain information about the story he told. The point of view of his story truly affects the reader’s understanding. Also, Beah included details that defined his experience and changed his life. He also wrote his memoir with an emotion that drove the story.

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Thanks to a german scientist named Albert Einstein, The United States created the atomic bomb.     Albert Einstein came from germany to warn the president that Germany was going to make an atomic bomb.  President roosevelt then approves the making of the atomic bomb and the project later becomes known as the manhattan project. The first atomic bomb was made in Manhatten, New York, USA.

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“ 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

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4880 Words | 20 Pages

Chapter one: Pages 3-4 Chapter two: Pages 5-7 Chapter three: Pages 8-9 Chapter four: Pages 10-12 Chapter five: Pages 13-15 Chapter six: Pages 16-19 Chapter seven: Pages 20-22 Chapter eight: Pages 23-25 Chapter nine: Pages 26-28 Chapter ten: 29-31 Works Cited: 32-34 Chapter One: The Biosphere The biosphere is the region of earth in which all living and non-living organisms that interact with each other are located. This region of earth is separated into the following five levels in ascending order; species, populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes. The first level of the biosphere are the species, which are individuals who are genetically related and can produce offspring. Examples of species would be alligators,

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