A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

727 Words2 Pages

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Citation:

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. iBook.

Tour of the Book:

A Long Way Gone is memoirs about Ishmael Beah’s life as an innocent civilian, an African boy soldier, being rehabilitated, and his attempts to not be pulled back into the war. Since Beah didn’t separate the book, readers can really imagine how fast everything happened. If Beah separated before the war and the time he was a soldier, readers could start thinking that a month or even a year went by without any action.

Subject:

In the beginning of the book, Ishmael was an innocent 12-year-old boy. One day in January of 1993, Ishmael walked 12-miles to Mattru Jong, a neighboring village. He had heard of the war, but never knew how close it was. While in Mattru Jong, the rebels attacked. Ishmael was forced to run away from the war. He tried to escape and was had to live of off the land around him for more than a year. When Ishmael was 13, he was captured by the soldiers and was forced to join them. As a soldier, he was constantly given drugs, pain relievers, alcohol and watching gruesome war movies to keep him fighting and killing the rebels. Three years after becoming a soldier, his lieutenant chose Ishmael to go to rehab. After being rehabilitated, Ishmael’s uncle took him in. On May 25, 1997, the rebels attacked Freetown. He was able to escaped Sierra Leone and get to New York.

Writing Style:

Serious, Factual, Honest

Purpose:

Ishmael Beah revisited the painful memories of being a boy soldier to describe to try to prevent child soldiers. There were over 300,000 child soldiers in the Sierra Leone’s civil war. All 300,000 of those soldi...

... middle of paper ...

...gh school and collage in New York.

Lesson:

I learned, while reading this book, that revenge is never good. Ishmael Beach says “and revenge will never come to an end…” (Beah 246). I agree with him. If I wanted to avenge my sister for taking a pen, I would take one of hers, and then she would take one of mine, then into a never-ending cycle of stealing pens. Although Ishmael was taking about killing for avenge, the idea is the same. Revenge cannot end. If I had asked my sister about the pen, we wouldn’t be in the never-ending cycle of revenge. Ishmael is trying to tell readers, revenge is not the answer to anything even if it seems like it is the thing to do.

People:

1. Ishmael Beah is described as gentile hearted and sweet but forced to do horrible things. He is one of the 300,000 child soldiers who were victims of their childhood being stolen from them.

Show More
Related

  • Character Analysis Of Ishmael's Lessons From 'Bra Spider'

    610 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ishmael Beah And All Quiet On The Civil War

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fear, an emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat, a feeling that no one wants to go through on a serious level. Imagine suddenly waking up to the sounds of gunshots and bombs without warning or constantly being surrounded by formidable men bearing guns. These experiences were not unusual for Ishmael Beah, the author of the book A Long Way Gone, and Paul Baumer, the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque. Both books are based off a war; however, All Quiet on the Western Front is based off Paul’s involvement in WWI and A Long Way Gone is about Ishmael’s exposure to the civil war within Sierra Leone. Although the books are different in content, they both show

    Read More

  • Ishmael Beah Family In A Long Way Gone

    1921 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ishmael Beah’s first transition on his approach to family began with a strong sense of hope. Consequently, after the separation of his mother, father, and older brother his life completely changed. When he began to take his journey Beah hoped to find his family and survive the war together. In his memoir, Beah demonstrated the idea of hope when he came across a childhood memory that impacted his life. As he walked alone in the forest Beah remembered his father’s significant words of advice that motivated him to find hope and purpose. With this idea in mind, his father once said, “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen” (2007, P. 54). For Ishmael, his father, mother, and

    Read More

  • Daniel Quinn's Ishmael

    1262 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ishmael was taken from the wild and held captive in a zoo, a circus, and a gazebo. During his time in various types of captivity, Ishmael was able to develop a sense of self and a better understanding of the world around him. Ishmael states that the narrator and those who share the same culture are “captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order live” (Quinn, 15). He goes to explain that releasing humanity from captivity is crucial for survival, but humans are unable to see the bars of the cage. Using the cage as a metaphor, Quinn is referring to human culture and how they do not see the harm it’s causing. As the novel progresses, it elaborates on how culture came about and why certain people inherit certain cultures. Ishmael refers to a story as the explanation of the relationship between humans, the world and the gods. He defines to enact is to live as if the story is a reality. Ishmael suggest that humans are captives of story, comparing them to the people of Nazi Germany who were held captive by Hitler’s

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    A prominent theme in A Long Way Gone is about the loss of innocence from the involvement in the war. A Long Way Gone is the memoir of a young boy, Ishmael Beah, wanders in Sierra Leone who struggles for survival. Hoping to survive, he ended up raiding villages from the rebels and killing everyone. One theme in A long Way Gone is that war give innocent people the lust for revenge, destroys childhood and war became part of their daily life.

    Read More

  • The Transformation of Ishmael in Snow Falling on Cedars

    2027 Words  | 5 Pages

    First, who is Ishmael Chambers? He is the son of a very well-respected and prominent citizen of San Piedro, Arthur Chambers. When Arthur dies, Ishmael takes over the job as the local news reporter. He is introduced into the story as a journalist in the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto and appears to remain aloof, a passive third person eye that would analyze the information impartially. In addition to being a reporter, Ishmael is also a war veteran with a missing limb as a souvenir to boot. The reader gets the feeling that Ishmael plays a small and minor role in the upcoming plot. This, however, is false. As the book gathers momentum, it becomes increasingly clear that Ishmael ties into the fabric of the outcome of the story-from the childhood and young adult romance between Hatsue and him, to the emotional scene where his arm is amputated, to the final climax where he discovers the evidence that can clear Kabuo's name, Ishmael is the crux on which the storyline hinges.

    Read More

  • A Long Way Gone Quotes

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael survives and describes his journey while at war. Ishmael was a 13 year old who is forced to become a child soldier. He struggles through a variety of problems. In his journey, he was separated from his family and mostly running for his life. Later on, he has no problem killing people and picking up his gun. In fact, anyone can be evil at any certain time with kids changing, getting drugged, and going back to war.

    Read More

  • A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ploys children rather than men. He is subjected to the violence of the war for more than three years before he is finally rescued by an organization dedicated to rehabilitating child soldiers. Once Ishmael discovers happiness, affection, and a will to survive, he regains what hope he had lost. No matter the circumstances concerning it, hope has always been the trigger for events in Ishmael’s life, thus making hope a theme present throughout the entirety of A Long Way Gone. Hope allows Ishmael to bounce back from the tragic events that marked his teenage years and discover a will to survive.

    Read More

  • A Long Way Gone Survival Essay

    531 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the war, people struggle to differentiate their enemies from friends causing people to act on fear. Survival is paramount and trusting someone can lead to the deaths of an entire village. Beah wrote,”Many times during our journey were surrounded by muscular men with machetes who almost killed us before realizing we were children just running away from war.” (Page 72, Chapter 8). War causes people to be on edge and trust is no longer a connection but a reason that could end a person's life. The major theme in “A Long Way Gone” is survival and acting based on an emotional concept can cost atrocities.

    Read More

  • War and the Loss of Innocence

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his memoir, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah deals with his loss of innocence as he is forced to join the children army of Sierra Leone in the country's civil war after being conscripted to the army that once destroyed his town in order for Ishmael to survive. His memoir acts as a voice to show the many difficulties that the members of Sierra Leone's child army had to suffer through and their day to day struggle to survive in the worst of conditions. In order to escape the perils and trials of war, Ishmael loses his innocence as he transitions from a child who liked to rap with his friends to a cold blooded solider in the army during the civil war in Sierra Leone. Through his transition, Ishmael is forced to resort to the addiction of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and “brown-brown” just so that he, along with the other members of the child army can have the courage to be able to kill their fellow countrymen and slaughter entire towns who stand in their paths. In order to portray his struggles in the army, Ishmael uses the dramatic elements of memories explained using flashback, dialogue, and first-person narration in order to establish the theme of the memoir being how war causes for a child to lose its innocence. The transition shown in the memoir illustrates how the title of the novel, A Long Way Gone, was chosen because it demonstrates how he is a long way gone psychologically, emotionally, and physically, from the child that he was when the memoir begins to the soldier that he is forced to become.

    Read More

  • The Message of Quinn's Ishmael

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    In language of the sort one might expect from a well educated man speaking with a friend, Ishmael told Quinn the story of his life. A large portion of it was spent in captivity, before a wealthy elderly man befriended and educated him. At the end of Ishmael's tale, Quinn was still somewhat befuddled.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Revenge In A Long Way Gone

    896 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ishmael’s search for revenge ended when he was taken out of the front lines of the war by

    Read More

  • The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone

    941 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    A long way gone is the factual story of Ishmael Beah who turn out to be an unenthusiastic boy warrior throughout a civil warfare in Sierra Leone. In Chapter 1, at twelve years of age, January 1993 Beah’s town is attacked while he is gone performing in a rap group with accomplice’s. Since they planned to come back the following day, they didn’t farewell or communicate with anyone wherever they were going, little they knew that they will certainly not come back to their families. It all started when Gibrilla and Kaloko came home early after school and they brought with them grief-stricken update for the eruption of warfare at the mining area. Amongst the mix-up, viciousness and vagueness of the warfare, Ishmael, Junior and his friends roam from settlem...

    Read More

  • A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

    1199 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Open Document