Essay Comparing The Mango And A Long Way Gone

The war in Sierra Leone changed many lives dramatically. It started in 1991 and ended in 2002. Between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the Rebels. For Ishmael and Mariatu both were brought in the war around 1993 when they were about eleven or twelve years old. Ishmael and Mariatu, in the two books, A Long Way Gone and The Bite of the Mango, Both Ishmael and Mariatu have experiences in the War. The two children both have separate stories of their unbelievable journeys through the war and their life after. Although they were both pulled into the war against their will, Mariatu was pulled in as a victim and Ishmael was pulled in as a perpetrator.

“ I do not really remember, when suddenly two men put us at gunpoint and motioned , with

their guns, for us to come closer...You will get used to it, everybody does eventually” (Beah 100). As Ishmael was just walking with his friends, trying to survive, he was forced into the war by these two soldiers. He was told that he would get used to it eventually implying that Ishmael was going to be involved for a long time. Ishmael would have to get used to being around dead bodies and a vulgar war scene. From this point forward he was used as a child soldier to kill. No child should lose their childhood to war, but unfortunately, for some, it happens. “But we’re not going to kill you,”he said with a small smile. “We’re going to take you with us. You’re pretty. There are things you can do for us”(Kamara 37). Being an eleven year old girl at this time, she may not have known what this meant. As we know reading this, the rebel soldier was implying and anticipating raping her. She was too young to know what the soldier meant. Mariatu thought that he wanted her to join the war and help attack villages. Little did she know that her life was about to change forever.
“ It hadn’t crossed their minds that a change of environment wouldn’t immediately make us normal boys; we were dangerous, and brainwashed to kill” (Beah 135).

It was not Ishmaels fault that he killed many people, although that is just how he was brought into the war. He was forced in it as a perpetrator and his two options were to kill or be killed by the rebels. Ishmael was a victim of brainwashing and his childhood was stolen from him. He had a long and tortuous journey before he became an innocent victim of brainwashing. As a normal young boy living an average life, you would expect them to be involved in fun, innocent activities rather than a young boy and having all of that taken away to become a soldier against his will. “It took the boy two attempts to cut off my right hand. The first swipe didn't go all the way through the bones, which I saw sticking out in all different shapes and sizes” ( Kamara 40). The boy that carried out his horrific and gruesome deed was no older than Mariatu was. Mariatu begged them not to cut her hands off. She told them that if they did cut her hands off that she would rather them just kill her, but the small boy soldier did not agree. This boy soldier wanted to see her suffer and almost a trophy for him. Mariatu passed out and woke up realizing that it was not a nightmare, that she really did not have hands. She was in pain for many days until she got treated. Mariatu was clearly a victim of torture and horrendous activities carried out

by rebel boy soldiers all over Sierra Leone.
Overall, both Mariatu and Ishmael were unfortunately taken as victims of the war. Ishmael killed rebels and was a soldier, but he was just a boy that did not have another choice at the time. The soldiers had him thinking that he was doing the right thing. Mariatu was tortured, and it is unimaginable to think about the pain and suffering she went through. Both have an amazing and frightening survival story that they share with the world.