The book A Long Way Gone is about a boy named Ishmael Beah. Ishmael was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He was 12 when the war first touched him. Basically the was was fought by children, on drugs. There were about 300,000 child soldiers. At age 13 he was picked up by the Government Army. At age 16 he was removed from the war by the UNICEF. With the help of rehab he learned to forgive himself, regain humanity to begin healing. This story was told with force and heartbreaking…
In this chapter, Ishmael and his friends are walking along and start to hear a loud crashing noise. Upon hearing the noise they go to investigate and discover the noise came from the ocean waves crashing against the rocks. The boys continue walking, until they come to a village that looked deserted. when they arrive at the village, the boys are attacked by fishermen holding machetes and fishing nets. They were resettled to the ground, tied up and brought to the village chef.…
The play away by Michael Gow is a story of three Australian families going on holidays. It is set in the summer of 1967-68 during Christmas and the New Year. There are many sub-themes in away such as death/loss, change, moving on with life, and forgiveness.…
A long way gone by Ishmael Beah is a story about his experiences as a child soldier in a civil war in Sierra Leone. He vividly showcases his life during the war by writing about his memories and his emotions in those particular situations. By displaying such scenarios, Beah indirectly explains his audience and purpose of his writing.…
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…
The Long Way Home an American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War, written by David Laskin, who graduated at Harvard with a degree in history and journalism. After he graduated at Harvard, Laskin went to Oxford University to receive an MA in English. The United States welcomes many immigrants from different countries. In the book, The Long Way Home, Laskin talks about twelve soldiers immigrating to the United States, and gives a background information on their lives, leading to them becoming American soldiers for the Great War.…
2. The external conflicts in this story include person vs. person and person vs. society. The reason person vs. person is included, because Ishmael has many problems with the rebels he must join in the cruel war that is of Sierra Leone. Not only did these very soldiers burn down his town and take away and later murder his parents, but they also bring horror and death to everyone who gets in their path, for reasons Ishmael could never discern. He must fight next to those that have destroyed the ones he loves, and the country he has grown to call his own. Person vs. society comes into play throughout the entire book. Ishmael and everyone who grew…
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.…
The privilege of being a child is only a lost dream to children in places like Sierra Leone where they are forced into joining rebel and militia groups. The children in those groups learn how to shoot guns when instead they should be learning how to ride a bicycle. In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone he speaks about his time during the war and being recruited as a child soldier. Ishmael goes through numerous life changing events and commits awful things during his time in fighting in the war. Ishmael however is able to leave his horrible lifestyle behind, obtain his humanity back and start a new beginning along with the rest of society. Beah manages to withstand the effect of the horrors of war by accepting the loss of his family, and beginning new relationships with people such as his newly found uncle and Esther the nurse from his rehabilitation center.…
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…
Throughout this novel, Daniel Quinn present a message that may help change the way of life of most people or in other words he is trying to save the world. Three very important points in the novel Ishmael that should be evaluated or that we should talk about are Evolution, Human Supremacy, and Mother Culture. These three main supports will help us to reflect on why we should change.…
Joining the rebel group, Ishmael receives an opportunity of physical survival yet this accompanies adapting to the cruel reality of guns, drugs and murder to survive the…
In A Long Way Gone, weapons, Shakespeare monologues and rap music are significant symbols used throughout the novel. Comparatively, in The Bite of the Mango the mango and her passion for acting are main symbols used throughout the book. Both the mango in The Bite of the Mango and weapons in A Long Way Gone represent a loss of innocence for both characters. Ishmael killed a human being with an AK-47, which marked the transition from childhood to a manhood. “The idea of death at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water” (Beah 122). At first, Ishmael feared the idea of becoming a soldier, but as time progressed the army had brainwashed him into believing killing was a daily living activity. In contrast, the loss of innocence in The Bite of the Mango occured when picked up and ate the mango without using her hands. This event reassured Mariatu that she would still able to live with no hands; it would simply be more difficult. In both books, coping mechanisms are coupled with symbols. Ishmael and Mariatu both use theater performances to help cope with the struggles of the war. In particular, when Ishmael recites Shakespeare monologues and raps lyrics, it reminds him the simplicity of life before the war. Ishmael used to rap with his friends and recite Shakespeare s to residents of his village before the war; therefore, performing and taking part in activities temporarily solved Ishmael’s struggles and distracted him…
This illustrates that Ishmael has a good heart and will do what he thinks is right, under good mental condition. And it connects with the book because when he was a child soldier , he was doing things that made him unhappy and traumatized. All the experiences and images has caused him to be in the position he is in now. But all of this came out fine because of his good heart. He cared for his family. friends, and other children. And it shows that Ishmael will sacrifice his own life for anyone that he loves.…
Throughout media, war is portrayed as a number. Graphs, statistics, and kill counts are often directly related to war; but, war is much more than a number. War is and emotional event. Rarely, individuals see accurate representations of the emotional brutality of war. However, Ismael Beah`s experiences, explained in chapters 1-7 of his book, “A Long Way Gone”, display the emotional hardships that caused Ishmael to grow up quickly.…