" What is Pearl Harbor?"(4). The book I read was Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki. This is what started World War II. During these times Japanese people were treated like animals. They were forced to live in internment camps throughout Executive Order 9066. Executive Order 9066 was approved by Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, this order ordered the military to place Japanese or Japanese Americans into these internment camps. This is where this story takes place, in an internment camp in Manzanar were Jeanne Wakatsuki and her family spend there time during these harsh times. Well developed characters, excellent theme, but a lacking a more entertaining plot makes Jeanne Wakatsuki's Farewell to Manzanar an exceptional book.…
In "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah the author describes his experiences in the Sierra Leone civil war. He faced many challenges, and this affected him in many ways. The Sierra Leone war brought Beah into conflict with his own humanity, specifically his will to live, his empathy, and his trust.…
Ishmael had to endure seeing people gunned down in front of him and murdered in the most gruesome ways as illustrated by the author, “I had seen heads cut off by machetes, smashed by cement bricks, and rivers filled with so much blood that the water ceased flowing” (Beah 49). After many months of cheating death and…
In the novel A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah describes to us what it was like to live in the terrifying times in Sierra Leone, South Africa. A civil war started from the want of mass diamond production, Streets were filled with chaos. Children traveling the streets from town to town were exposed to traumatizing and life changing events. In Beah's novel the traumatic effects of war, drug addiction, and mass murder all lead to the experience of PTSD. A post traumatic stress disorder that not only affects themselves but family members and friends also.…
Ishmael Beah is an unsettled thirteen year old boy. With no family to comfort him during the war, he is apprehensive. Images of violence, as cold as ice, constantly run through his brain. While circulating through villages, Baeh and his friends find dead bodies, burnt houses, empty bullet shells, and a variety more. By this point, it barely phases him. An empty village that the rebels have already raided is where the boys reside, at this time. This has become normal, because one may never know what the next day is going to give you. As stated by Ishmael Beah, "One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end. I didn't know what I was going…
Guns are a controversial thing in today’s society. Whether you are for or against them provoke fear in other’s unarmed. Guns are a way that enables anyone to gain power. In A Long Way Gone a memoir by Ishmael Beah he talks about how his early life was in Sierra Leone, where a war was going on during the time. Beah affected by the war, discussing how he felt and still feels today, “That person pointed the gun at the place where I had been shot and pulled the trigger. I woke up and hesitantly touched my side. I became afraid, since I could no longer tell the difference between dream and reality” (15). Beah tells the reader how his mental health has declined as distinguishing the difference from reality and his dreams are not present. This inability…
Throughout history wars have been fought mercilessly and without remorse especially in guerilla warfare. In A Long Way Gone, author Ishmael beah, explains in vivid detail his experience during the war and the horrors it came with. Throughout his journey he tends to see the environment around him fall apart. While it may seem hellish and unforgiving nature itself tries to run from the war. Nature itself does not consider war to be natural since it is driven by murder rather than…
While he and his friends are away for a talent show, their village is raided by rebels. The gruesome storytelling in A Long Way Gone is striking for many reasons on several levels. At one point Ishmael writes, “We are not like the rebels, those riffraff who kill people for no reason.” The narrative takes an unexpected turn by closing with Beah recalling a philosophical moment from his early childhood. In the final pages of the novel, Beah explains a story told to him and other children in his village once a year: you are a hunter prepared to kill a monkey with a rifle; before you shoot, the monkey tells you that if you kill him, your mother will die and if you don’t, your father will. None of the children ever reveal their own answer to what…
In the book Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah struggles between trust and survival in the midst of a gruesome war. He laments how, “the war had destroyed the enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people” throughout the book there are many examples of this upsetting truth. The consequences of this mistrust in people are clear as he travels through Sierra Leon while being incessantly threatened and assumed a member of the RUF. Most of this book is about the ongoing struggle within Ishmael between trying to stay alive and deciding who to trust. The phenomena of war and trust can coexist only if you have an ability to differentiate your friends from enemies. Ishmael struggles throughout the book to stay alive, and thus decides to trust no one, but this could be detrimental to his survival.…
Ishmael was mentally and physically challenged as a child solider. The RUF constrained the children to do medications, for example, cocaine, pot, and "chestnut cocoa," which give them the guts to fight and the ability to forget their emotions in times of war. Their everyday presence is a battle of survival, Beah wind up submitting acts he would never have done for example, taking nourishment from kids and killing innocent villagers. If Ishmael or any other child soldier didn’t comply with what the RUF soldiers told them to do, their families and anything they love would be threatened. The novel A Long Way Gone makes an incredible showing with regards to delineating the life of a child…
In Ishmael Beah's autobiographical narrative "A Long Way Gone", the theme of the story is to never give up, because throughout the book the main character faces numerous difficult situations, and manages to overcome them. First, Beah's responses towards certain problems show the reader his will to survive. For instance, when Ishmael and his friends are all alone after escaping from rebels, he states, "we had no idea where we would go or even how to get to a safe place, but we were determined to find one" (Beah 36). We see how he is driven to find a way to safety even in the midst of a war. Second, we see the theme in action when Beah “feels as if he is always waiting for death to come…
The author includes this violence to spur action, cause plot complications, and trigger stress in other characters. When the rebels attacked Ishmael's village he was separated from the rest of his family. It was up to Ishmael to decide whether he wanted to risk his life to search for his family or if he wanted to flee for safety. Later in the novel Ishmael and his group of stay in a village. The village is attacked, but Ishmael is able to escape just in time. However he has also lost his friends in all the commotion. He spends five days searching for his basic needs. During this time he also faces other struggles such as hunger, thirst, boredom, and pain. This causes the plot complications. At the end of the novel, Ishmael must escape the country into Guinea for freedom. He needs to board a bus with his passport. As he is nearing the border he sees a group of men with heavy gun power patrolling the border. He starts to freak out over every possibility. He tries to think of what would…
Till it´s gone Robert Crumb born in Philadelphia 1943 (73 year), also called R. Crumb, has made 1992: short history of America, which is a colorful short cartoon about America throughout the past years. The pictures remind me of a song called "Don´t know what you got, till it´s gone” because, in the comic strip the wonderful nature is destroyed, and eventually the people who lived there have planted trees which I think is a sign that when we destroyed nature, we realized what we had lost, and regretted it. Industry is a big success for the world, but at the end, people will long for the past. “Don´t know what you got till it´s gone Don´t know what it is I did so wrong…
Ishmael and his friends were ushered out to the middle of the village to listen to the lieutenant speak. He mostly talked about how they are running out of soldiers and they need more people to fight and protect the village. The lieutenant was standing on several bricks and stated, “I am sorry to show you these gruesome bodies, especially with your children present. But then again, all of us here have seen death or even shaken hands with it.” He then pointed to two bodies bleeding out, “This man and this child decided to leave this morning even though I had told them it was dangerous. The man insisted that he didn't want to be a part of our war, so I gave him his wish and let him go. Look what happened”(Page 107). There was a choice to join or not to join but, if the choice not to join was picked, Ishmael and his friends would have to leave the village and be off on their own again. Alhaji, one of Ishmael’s friends from his former village said to Ishmael, “We had no choice. Leaving the village was as good as being dead”(Page…
Home is a place where most experience ultimate comfort, security, and emotional ties. As reading Joan Didion’s “On Going Home” you can feel the tone and passion she has towards home, especially proven when she states, “Days pass. I see no one. I come to dread my husband’s evening call, not only because he is full of news of what by now seems to me our remote life in Los Angeles, people he has seen, letters which require attention, but because he ask what I have been doing, suggests uneasily that I get out and drive away, instead I drive across the river to a family graveyard.”(141) She’s completely content on being satisfied by home with its simple ways and family surroundings. That’s why going home to Joan is the ultimate comfort, security, and emotional relief; because she’s with family.…