Sierra Leone, and the problem that is affecting us children is the war that forces us to run away from our homes, lose our families, and aimlessly roam the forests” (Beah 199). The memoir called a long way gone written by Ishmael Beah, is about a boy who lives through the deadly civil war in Sierra Leone. At the start of his story, Ishmael was traveling to a town named Mattru Jong, when the war broke out at his home town. Him and six of his friends, one of them being his older brother, all fled Mattru
The biography, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, tells the story of a thirteen year old boy who spends his childhood being compelled to fight in the civil war in Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah tries to avoid fighting for the rebels by running from town to town with his friends as the rebels advanced. Finally, his luck runs out and Ishmael Baeh is forced to serve in the civil war for the rebels. The story goes on to describe his horrific childhood as a soldier in Sierra Leone
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
really paints a vivid picture is written by Ishmael Beah, an ex child soldier still dealing with his demons. “A memory of a town we had attacked during a school dance had been triggered. I could hear the terrified cries of teachers and students, could see the blood cover the dance floor. Allie tapped me on the shoulder and brought me back to the present. I smiled at him, but I was deeply sad for the rest of our stay.” Moments before this flashback Ishmael was in a club having the time of his life,
backgrounds and ways of life. For Ishmael, He grown up in a well mannered household. Beah 22 shows that his mother was cooking for the family for them to eat. In the book it says, “The site of the woman cooking always reminded me of the times I used to watch my mother cook “. What this quote shows is that he loves his mother. Furthermore, he says on another quote “your Father is a good man and he loves you very much “. This also shows that his father is a good man. Ishmael was then influenced to be a soldier
An example is when Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier and author of A Long Way Gone, is first recruited into the military. After viewing mutilated and lifeless corpses, a soldier tells Ishmael “You will get used to it, everybody does eventually” (pg. 100). Taking people’s lives, doing drugs, and watching death unfold before you are terrible things, but children like Ishmael aren’t really given any other choice. They are forced to commit these acts
Many young children under aged have been taken in by the government. They are being held captive tell they are drugged enough and brainwashed to go out and kill or to be killed. They are forced to train to kill under the influence of drugs and they are hardly aware of what they or doing. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because of the absents of their minds and them not being able to process what they are doing. These children are often seen as targets because they are under aged and not able
Sierra Leone. Beah uses the theme of family and love, along with the use of symbolism and other literary devices, to inform a larger audience of the issues that he and others had to face while trying to survive in a war zone. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war. (1991-2002) Ishmael’s story solely focused on the years he was affected by the war. (1992-1997) The tale begins when with Beah, his brother,
Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a written, first-hand experience by the author himself, Ishmael Beah. After surviving the war, he did a fantastic job describing his journey for survival.The memoir is very descriptive and a good read. Beah writes about the horrors that he saw when he was a ‘Boy Soldier’. This novel is another addition to the collection of nonfiction survival stories. This is Ishmael Beah’s most famous novel. This nonfiction story captures the author 's childhood. This novel was
The experiences of Beah Ishmael was anything but normal compared to our average American life. He was from Mattru Jong, an undeveloped area in southern Sierra Leone. From 1993 all the way to 2001, an enormous civil war broke out in northwest Africa. The war displaced 4.5 million people and recruited over 300,000 child soldiers. Beah was one of the children recruited to fight in the civil war. Throughout the war, tens of thousands of people were massacred. The book Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Imagine being you are living in africa it's almost time to eat dinner with your parents, brother, and sister. You mother asks you to go fetch some water, you happily agree as you step outside striding along further and further away from your house. Start to get the feeling of someone following you, you shrug it off. Until suddenly someone bursts from the bushes chasing you with a gun followed by many other men. You start to run as fast as your legs could carry you, one of the men forcefully grabs
In the arousing argument over child soldiers, the two sides have defined themselves as believing child soldiers to be victims of war or child soldiers to be perpetrators of war. It has been heavily debated whether these soldiers should be given amnesty, or whether they should be held accountable for their crimes. Though it is a valid claim to believe that child soldiers should be given no legal forgiveness, the belief that they should be given full amnesty is a much stronger claim, for they had no
marijuana and sniffed “brown brown,” cocaine mixed with gunpowder, which was always spread out on a table near the ammunition hut, and of course I took more of the white capsules, as I had become addicted to them” remarked Ishmael Beah at an interview with the New York Times. Another time Beah mentioned, “Sometimes we were asked to leave for war in the middle of a movie. We would come back hours later after killing many people and continue the movie as if we had just returned from intermission. We were always
undeveloped brains in a unresponsive trance. This trance leave them easy to brainwash which makes them want to stay. While it may also be true that these children kill everyday, it is not true that they can just kill their commander or run away. Ishmael Beah, former child soldier, has stated that your commander starts to become a father figure. Pointing a gun on a newfound father figure is not only difficult for adults, it is strenuous for these children. Also, as stated before, these kids may not
In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Beah is an adolescent whose innocence is stripped away at the hands of war. At the age of 13, Beah is forced to fight in the war in order to survive, or give up his battle and die. As a result, Beah ultimately decides to join the war. The harsh violence that Beah is exposed to strips him of his innocence and leaves him helpless and alone with his mind keeping him awake at night trying to unsee the cruelness he has been exposed to. Beah utilizes flashbacks, symbolism
Have you ever had an opinion on if child soldiers should have consequences on their actions or have u ever thought that it is not all their fault? Many people say the kids should be prosecuted because they know what they were doing while others think differently. I believe that it is not the kids fault, the first reason i think this is because when kids are kids they can’t tell grown ups what they want to do. The second reason i think that they should not be prosecuted is because while they are being
Abuse and Control: Paralleling Religion in the Jim Crow South In 1944, Richard Wright shattered the alien perception of racism, malnourishment, corporal punishment, and religion of the Jim Crow South, whilst initiating the Civil Rights Movement in a single volume of text: a memoir entitled Black Boy. Acting as a chime of awakening to the social corruption and injustice occurring in the place that enslaved hundreds of souls generations before, Wright additionally criticizes many aspects of the lives
boy soldier, written by Ishmael Beah, the main character himself, is #1 on my list of recommended books for young adults. Through the touching first-person narration, the brutally honest journey has the ability to change an individual. Themes of childhood, war and humanity brings the story to life and has the power to spur growth in readers. Your children will look at the world in a more mature perspective after the eye opening read of the story of Ishmael Beah. Ishmael Beah was only 12 years old
I never discussed it with anyone, though, for fear of how my mother would feel. I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament.” , (Beah 380). I don’t know why I waited until the end of the book to find a quote to start this off with, but it seems to be the best one to better understand what this book was about. This memoir is about the trial tribulations of a child soldier in a Civil
Way Home, an autobiography written by Ishmael Beah describes an unthinkable trauma-filled journey of a young boy. From the beginning of the book, twelve-year-old Beah is faced with difficulties when he is forced to flee his small village in Sierra Leone. After which, he wanders the land which is now clouded by war and violence. By the age of thirteen, he was admitted into the government’s army and was made into a boy soldier that committed horrific deeds. Beah was exposed to and committed many offenses