A Long Way Gone Analysis

Violence, as stated, can affect someone physically, emotionally, and psychologically. The earth has sustained a long history of violence which has changed the way humanity has evolved and changed. It has left indents in our everyday instincts and has haywired the way we think unconsciously. War, specifically, is the cause of this. Humans have been fighting among each other since the beginning of time whether it was for survival or freedom, which we will see in “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah. This is a true war story written by a man who has been part of war from only the age of twelve. Along with a gang of friends and his older brother, they traveled from village to village after their home was destroyed by the touch of civil war. They had no food and not even a clue as how to survive with the shadow of death lingering above their heads. They traveled with the only intent of finding their families which proved to be a long and difficult journey. It is along this journey, we see how they change and how

Today, we only hear of these horrors through television, word of mouth, but never by experience, which is true, for the young boys in Sierra Leone. Ishmael and his friends, who survived, know what it is like to hold a gun, to not be able to eat for more than two days, to kill or not to be killed. At such a tender age of maybe thirteen, these young boys of Sierra Leone have had more painful memories then an eighty-year old man in America. Ishmael tell of his horrors in the war and we may feel for him, but we as Americans will never be able to understand the full extent of his pain. He has been shot in the foot, lost his family, watched his own friends die before his eyes, and even tortured. Ishmael has had hope right in front of him, only to have it taken away by rebels and war. These are only half of his memories and already his story has out-shined that of an American young boy his