Cause And Effect Essay: A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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Cause and Effect Essay – A Long Way Gone Texts are powerful tools that have the ability to entertain and deliver messages to its readers. Certain events occurring in texts allow readers to see the injustices in the world around them. In the novel, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, readers see the struggles undergone by a boy soldier during an appalling war in Sierra Leone. This novel expresses how a child soldier is impacted as a result of civil war, the power of authority and the lack of parenting during the war. The lack of parenting during the civil war in Sierra Leone is a major cause that leads to the use of child soldiers during the war. The outbreak of the war in Sierra Leone caused everyone to run for their lives, leaving behind loved ones. Due to the sudden outbreak, many children were split apart from their parents leaving them abandoned. Wen the war began “fathers had come running from their workplaces, only to stand in front of their empty houses with no indication of where their families had gone. Mothers wept as they ran towards schools, rivers and water taps to look for their children. Children ran home to look for their parents who were wandering the streets in search of them. As the gunfire intensified, people gave up looking for their loved ones and ran out of town” (Beah 9). Ishmael realizes that he will be alone without his family and begins to feel as if a part of his is lost. As for the separation of families, the children in Sierra Leone were forced to make their own sensible decisions in order to stay alive during that time. Young children who lost their families were brainwashed into believing that fighting in the war was the right thing to do. Correspondingly, the lack of parenting during this difficult... ... middle of paper ... ... 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.

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