This memoir about a boy soldier was very condescending. This was a true story for the author, Ishmael Beah and his life-changing events that occurred in his past. Ishamel Beah was a twelve year old African boy who lived in Sierra Leone Africa who fled attacking rebels due to a civil war in his country, who wandered into different villages trying to avoid the violence that seemed almost inevitable. He sauntered along with his brother and friends who scraped by day-by-day scavenging for food and struggled for survival. In the fifth chapter of the book, Beah describes the struggles he went through by saying, “…our joints weakened and ached” (p. 30). After days of traveling, Beah was eventually taken by the group of rebels and became one of those he feared. He becomes part of the rebel army and is brainwashed into thinking that he can avenge the death of his own family who were slaughtered by those same rebels. The thing that kept the all the young boys fighting was them being forced to get addicted to cocaine, marijuana, and things of that sort to keep their emotions strong for the times in war. Beah was turned into a fierce boy soldier into the Lieutenant in charge brought him into the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Beah was taken into a rehabilitation center and was treated by a nurse who helped him get back into humanity and heal from the events that he has gone through. The overall purpose of him telling us his story is to inform us on how far we can go into something, like him being part of a rebel army, being able to rehabilitate back to his normal self, and understand these hardships. He writes about his experience to show how he’s changed. What shows his point of change is when Beah arrives in New York and he says ...
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... to feel my ribs when I touched my sides” (p.30). He noted all the bloodshed that had occurred and the Imam who was set on fire by the rebels. An imam was a religious leader who was murdered by some of the rebels. Beah remembered all the violence that happened and even when the rebels tortured the older man right in front of Ishmael’s eyes.
Overall, the rhetorical devices that Ishmael Beah uses are used well to show his age. When he uses the allusion, he refers to a movie about war and guns and a ton of violence and that really showed Beah’s knowledge of war and was foreshadowing the events he was brought into in real life. It really jumped out and told it extremely well from his point of view as a boy soldier and when he was little. Ishmael Beah did a fantastic job describing his past and the rhetoric that was included in this piece enhanced his story very well.
The book “A Long Way From Chicago” is an adventurous and funny story. The story takes place at Joey Dowdel’s Grandmothers farm house in the country. Joey and his sister Mary Alice were sent to their Grandma’s house during the summer because their parents had to go to Canada for their work. At first, Joey felt uncomfortable with his Grandmother because he had never met her before but eventually he got to know her and they became close friends.
Throughout the book the audience has seen Ishmael go through adventure and sorrow. In the novel Ishmael is forced to go to war at age thirteen, but what keeps him going were his grandmother's wise words. His grandmother was the one who told him powerful lessons that he could use in real life. These lesson that Ishmael is keeping him grounded is not only from his grandmother but also from his friends. Lessons that were seen by the readers are “wild pigs”, “Bra Spider”, and the story about the moon.
The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This along with the language used and the order, in which the events are disclosed, all serve to create a particular interpretation and to guide the reader to respond in a particular way.
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, a former boy soldier with the Sierra Leone army during its civil war(1991- 2002) with the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), provides an extraordinary and heartbreaking account of the war, his experience as a child soldier and his days at a rehabilitation center. At the age of twelve, when the RUF rebels attack his village named Mogbwemo in Sierro Leone, while he is away with his brother and some friends, his life takes a major twist. While seeking news of his family, Beah and his friends find themselves constantly running and hiding as they desperately strive to survive in a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. During this time, he loses his dear ones and left alone in the wilderness, is forced to face many physical and psychological dangers. By thirteen, he has been picked up by the government army, and is conditioned to fight in the war by being provided with as many drugs as he could consume (cocaine and marijuana), rudimentary training, and an AK-47. In the next two years, Beah goes on a mind-bending killing spree to avenge the death of his dear ones. At sixteen, he was picked up by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at the rehabilitation center, he learns to forgive himself and to regain his humanity.
Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, narrates the story of Ishmael’s life as a child soldier in the Sierra Leonean civil war. Ishmael chronicles his journey from a scared, adrift child who lost his family in the war to a brutal child soldier who mercilessly killed many individuals to a guilt stricken rehabilitated teen who slowly learns to overcome his remorse from his past actions. Ishmael’s life as a child soldier first started when the Sierra Leonean army took him and his friends with them to the village, Yele, occupied by army officials and seemingly safe from the rebels. Unfortunately, within a few weeks of their stay, the rebels attacked Yele, and Ishmael and his friends decided to make the choice of becoming a child soldier in order to sustain their slim chances of staying alive. Ishmael’s interaction with violence was very different as a child soldier compared to as a civilian: while he witnessed violent actions before, as a child soldier he was committing them. As his life as a soldier demanded more violence from him, Ishmael sank deeper into the process of dehumanization with his main driving point being the revenge that he sought from the rebels for the deaths of his family and friends. After a few months as a child soldier, Ishmael was brought to the Benin home by UNICEF officials who hoped to rehabilitate the completely dehumanized child soldiers. With the help of Esther, a compassionate nurse, and other staff members in the center, Ishmael was able to ultimately reverse the effects of the war on him. By forgiving himself and the rebels who took away his close ones from him, Ishmael was able to restore his emotion of empathy and become rehabilitated.
Ishmael kills people without it being a big problem or deal. He was forced and threatened. If not then he would be killed. First, he was terrified to see people being killed. In the book, Ishmael quotes “My hand began trembling uncontrollably…” This shows that Ishmael is being aware of his surroundings and of himself. This is important because it shows how Ishmael feels before he and his
Ishmael starts his journey with a will to escape and survive the civil war of Sierra Leone in order to reunite with his mom, dad, and younger siblings, who fled their home when his village was attacked by rebels. Having only his older brother, who he escaped with, and a few friends by his side Ishmael is scared, but hopeful. When the brothers are captured by rebels, Ishmael’s belief in survival is small, as indicated by his fallible survival tactics when he “could hear the gunshots coming closer…[and] began to crawl farther into the bushes” (Beah 35). Ishmael wants to survive, but has little faith that he can. He is attempting to survive by hiding wherever he can- even where the rebels can easily find him. After escaping, Ishmael runs into a villager from his home tells him news on the whereabouts of his family. His optimism is high when the villager, Gasemu, tells Ishmael, “Your parents and brothers wil...
...ys, they are seized by soldiers and taken to a village engrossed by the military fighting back at the rebels. The fellow children soldiers became Ishmael’s only family at the time, and each of them were supplemented with a white pill, “The corporal said it will boost your energy” says a young soldier. (116) Little did Ishmael and the others know that the tablet was an illicit drug given to them to fight their fatigue and anxiety for a short term to better them in combat with the rebels. Beah unknowingly alters into a blood-craving animal, who kills with numbness and no emotion. “I was not afraid of these lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them.” (119) Ishmael now relies and is addicted to drugs to get through his day-to-day life, including smoking marijuana, and constantly snorting “brown brown” (121) which is a mixture of gunpowder and cocaine.
This is at core a pitiful story which encompasses of ruthlessness and miseries endured by Ishmael Beah. All the trials in this story are chronologically prescribed and heart sobbing, in which a person who reads can in time weep while interpreting.
...ust deal with similar pains. Through the authors of these stories, we gain a better sense of what soldiers go through and the connection war has on the psyche of these men. While it is true, and known, that the Vietnam War was bloody and many soldiers died in vain, it is often forgotten what occurred to those who returned home. We overlook what became of those men and of the pain they, and their families, were left coping with. Some were left with physical scars, a constant reminder of a horrible time in their lives, while some were left with emotional, and mental, scarring. The universal fact found in all soldiers is the dramatic transformation they all undergo. No longer do any of these men have a chance to create their own identity, or continue with the aspirations they once held as young men. They become, and will forever be, soldiers of the Vietnam War.
Forced to become a child soldier, Beah experiences many horrific and life changing things. Among these, the drastic cultural changes that occurred as a result of the war. The increased western influence in the region only advanced the societal changes. In the memoir, Beah explains the significance of western culture and both the positive and negative effects it has on him and his peers. On one side, western values and items were beneficial to Beah and his peers in the sense that the cassettes Beah carried around with him saved his life on multiple occasions.
The civil war of Sierra Leone lasted from 1991 to 2002. In this civil war approximately fifteen thousand kids were forced to become soldiers. Either by being kidnapped or by having their lives threatened. The situation was an extremely sad one. They had no choice weather they wanted to be soldiers or not. Like Ishmael said in A Long Way Gone, “It was either kill or be killed.” This situation is one where most people would not even be able to imagine themselves in. Ishmael Beah was a boy who suffered, because of the civil war. His family was killed and he was forced to become a soldier for the military. He eventually was rescued by UNICEF and eventually moved to the United States. For a decade, there has been a war between Mexican drug cartels and the Mexican government. There have been an unacceptable number of kids that have been used as soldiers in this war. Approximately, thirty thousand youngsters have been forced into becoming soldiers. In contrast to Sierra Leone, the soldiers here are only for the drug cartels, but in Sierra Leone even the government made the children become soldiers too. Just like the children of Sierra Leone, the children of Mexico are also kidnapped or threatened into becoming soldiers. Once captured, they are transformed into belligerent
... instill the violent act of killing in the minds of the child soldiers. Ishmael learns that he must channel his rage and seek revenge for the death of his family. From this, Ishmael and many other young soldiers now believed that revenge was the only way to fight for what they have lost. It is because of this violent filled society that Ishmael and other young soldiers suffered from a disorder called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a mental condition that occurs as a result of a psychological shock, which in this case is the war. As Ishmael was being pulled out of the corruption he was living in, it was at this time that readers realized that he was suffering from PTSD, and was going to receive help in order to correct it. All in all, it is the manipulation and misuse of the power of authority that impacts innocent young soldiers in a psychological manner.
In the book by Carl Rogers, A Way of Being, Rogers describes his life in the way he sees it as an older gentleman in his seventies. In the book Rogers discusses the changes he sees that he has made throughout the duration of his life. The book written by Rogers, as he describes it is not a set down written book in the likes of an autobiography, but is rather a series of papers which he has written and has linked together. Rogers breaks his book into four parts.
Many of the imagery Ishmael portrayed in the book makes us feel like we are also a firsthand witness right then and there. A prime example of imagery in chapter 1 states, “When he opened the door opposite the driver’s, a woman who was leaning against it fell to the ground. Blood was coming out of her ears. People covered the eyes of their children. In the back of the van were three more dead bodies, two girls and a boy, and their blood was all over the seats and the ceiling of the van.” (Page 12-13) As an imagery, this quote displays a visual image that appeals to both sight and hearing. In my opinion, I feel like this quote means a lot to Ishmael because he was just standing there, unable to help or do anything. I think during this moment, a lot of stuff ran through his mind, but he was just too heartbroken to actually express it. For the first time, Ishmael realized that the world is full of