Alex Gonzales Massy Honors English 4 8 March 2024 Thematic Statement essay It was bottom of the eighth and we were losing by 3 with bases loaded we needed to hit a home run to acquire a grand slam and the lead. “STRIKE 1” I was thinking in my head that I couldn’t do it. “STRIKE 2.” I was ready to give up, but my coach got up and yelled “you can do this, focus on the ball and just swing.” I did exactly what he told me to, and I hit the ball. I hit the home run to keep us in the game. That shows determination just like the four-time Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs. They were determined to win the Super Bowl after a bad start to their season. The book A Long Way Gone also shows determination from a young boy named Ishmael Beah …show more content…
In Chapter 8, Ishmael is determined to get out of the woods. “The next morning I was determined to find my way out of the forest even though my back ached painfully from sleeping in the trees” (50). His back was in pain, but he still kept going. He was alone and scared but was determined to reach where he was going and that was to get out of the forest and survive and to do what he needed to eat. He found fruit to eat, and then he remembered something he did with his grandfather. “I thought about when Junior and I had visited Kabati and would take walks with our grandfather on paths around the coffee farms by the village. He would point out medicinal leaves and trees, whose barks were important medicines” (51). This would help him in case he ate poisonous fruit: “I looked around the forest for one of the medicinal leaves that grandfather had said remove poison from the body. I might need it if the fruit I had eaten was poisonous” (51). This shows he was determined to survive the forest, but not only that, he was determined to see his family. Later in the book in chapter 11 Ismael was determined to see his family especially after the death of his friend Saidu. “Finally, we approached the village. We’re seeing our families as actually a possibility. I couldn’t stop smiling as coffee trees began to replace forest and footprints appeared on the
First, in the book Game Changers, the main character Ben faces adversity. Ben is a short little league baseball player who gets hit by a blazing-fast fastball. Since this has been first time ever being hit by a ball, he is now scared of every pitcher he faces. Ben has overcome adversity by “deciding to man-up and not be scared of the baseball”. The next time Ben overcomes adversity is when he is in a massive hitting slump (which means he’s not getting base hits in baseball). Ben shows “perseverance by not giving up like many kids would”. Ben eventually battles his way out of the slump. This is just another example of overcoming adversity.
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.
...g that throughout the book, Ishmael is in constant need of a friend to help him in situations like the main plot I mentioned earlier. He is very lucky and makes many of those friends he needs by the end of the book.
As a child, Ishmael Beah seemed like he was playful, curious, and adventurous. He had a family that loved him, and he had friends that supported him. Before the war, Ishmael had a childhood that was similar to most of the children in the United States. Unfortunately, the love and support Ishmael grew accustom to quickly vanished. His childhood and his innocence abruptly ended when he was forced to grow up due to the Sierra Leone Civil War. In 1991, Ishmael thought about survival rather than trivial things. Where was he going to go? What was he going to eat? Was he going to make it out of the war alive? The former questions were the thoughts that occupied Ishmaels mind. Despite his efforts, Ishmael became an unwilling participant in the war. At the age of thirteen, he became a
Ishmael was taken from Africa at a young age and was sold to a zoo then a traveling carnival. Ishmael was bought by Walter Sokolow, a Jewish man whom had lost his family during the Holocaust. Not long after being purchased Ishmael learned to telepathically communicate with Walter. Mr. Sokolow brought Ishmael many books so he would be able to educate himself. Ishmael’s studies began with captivity but soon he became more interested in human nature. Upon Mr. Sokolow’s death Ishmael lived mostly independently in the city, with the help of the late Mr. Sokolow’s butler, Mr. Partridge. After all Ishmael has learned through his readings he seeks out students to help spread his knowledge. (Quinn, 1995)
...ircumstances as he did, believe that revenge is not good and it keeps on going if no one stops the process. Overall, Ishmael eventually learned that revenge does not solve anything and seeking revenge just results in a longer war sustained by the counterproductive concept of vengeance. Additionally, Ishmael learned that by constantly thinking about his culpability, he was just bringing more harm to himself and in the process was unable to create any progress in his own life. Ishmael eventually realized that merely reflecting on his actions did not do anything and to fix and prevent the problems he faced, he would have to take initiative to reach out to the people who could help. By utilizing the idea of forgiveness, Ishmael learned that he could let go of the huge mountain of stress that was bringing him down and prevented him from overcoming the effects of the war.
Ishmael was a normal 12 year old boy in a small village in Sierra Leone when his life took a dramatic turn and he was forced into a war. War has very serious side effects for all involved and definitely affected the way Ishmael views the world today. He endured and saw stuff that most people will never see in a lifetime let alone as a young child. Ishmael was shaped between the forced use of drugs, the long road to recovery and the loss of innocence of his
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
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 also survives another dreadful event when he goes through the war. While trying to find refuge from the war, Ishmael and his friends ironically end up joining the army, to fight against the rebels. Over the course of his time in the war, Ishmael would be exposed to unparalleled violence day in and day out. During these times Ishmael says “Sometimes we were asked to leave for war in the middle of a movie. We would come back hours later after killing many people and continue the movie as if we had just returned from intermission. We were always either at the front lines, watching a movie, or doing drugs. There was no time to be alone or to think” (p. 124). This quote perfectly sums up the danger that Ishmael experienced during the war. Most of this danger however, was not the fact that he was likely to be injured or killed. Granted, he was on the front lines numerous days a week and snuck behind enemy lines frequently, both tasks which could have resulted in an injury, or worse, death, but the real dangers he faced during these times were dehumanization he faced constantly. Everyday, he either went out into the
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...
Ishmael learned human language and culture at zoos and menageries, and began to think about the world in a way completely differently than he would have in the wild. The narrator has similar feelings of living in captivity, but has trouble articulating how or why.
Most people who Ishmael came in contact with and himself, had a conflict between trust and survival. This conflict became an effect of the war in which many people suffered because they chose to live over a possible death. Beah retells his traumatic experience that gives countless situations where survival is picked over trust. In a world without war trust and survival can be
Ishmael’s search for revenge ended when he was taken out of the front lines of the war by
Virtue ethics, also sometimes called aspirational ethics, focuses on the character of an individual as the key element of morality; thus, an act is right if performed by a fully virtuous person. When compared to the other main ethical theories, such as utilitarian or deontological ethics, virtue ethics aims to answer fundamentally different questions: “What sort of person should I be?” and “What is the good life?”. Aristotle, the first formulator of virtue ethics, focused on three key concepts within virtue ethics: eduaimonia, arête, and telos. Eduaimonia can best be defined as “happiness”, “well-being”, or flourishing of an individual. Arete is virtue which can be defined as “whatever makes a thing an ‘outstanding specimen’ of its kind”. Finally,