A Long Way Gone Theme

A long way gone by Ishmael Beah, attempts to evoke a powerful response from the leader, by using vivid descriptions to show how he has become emotionally traumatized by the acts of violence in the war. The reader then sympathizes with Ishmael and begins to understand the lasting and deep, emotional pain that Ishmael deals with on a daily basis.

The book A Long Way Gone, was an honest book. It showed the struggles of war and what it does to a person. The story of Ishmael Beah is a valuable one, full of love, struggle, family and violence. One of the things that is great about this book, is that it shows a clear progression of Ishmael’s character, from a sweet young boy, to a hardened young man You can see is innocence being slowly ripped away by the military, who forced him to smoke gunpowder and massacre villages. He is a real role model for kids who are struggling to get through something. If this boy can get through a war and survive, then you can get through this! The thing I didn’t like about it is the violence. They could have gotten away with not showing a baby being cut out

“One side of the sky was completely blue and the other was filled with stagnant clouds. The quiet breeze caused a branch to snap in the forest. The echo sounded like a cry, a wailing”(pg.90). While walking through the forest, Ishmael described his surrounding so well, blending in the description of the forest and the sound of his surrounding. A book can have a variety of techniques that makes it stand out from other books, but Ishmael decided to use imagery to see if it would work well with his book. And it did, as this is a book about war, the amount of details in it really have helped the reader. With all the different places, scenes, situations, and deaths, readers were easily able to depict what it looked like or feel like due without getting confused. In addition, if A Long Way Gone did not have all the details that it had now, it would be a very confusing book as the book has too many situations to imagine. All the work that Ishmael has put into doing the details really helped the

I'm going to go over three different reasons for why A Long Way Gone is eye opening and how Ishamel gains wisdom throughout his experiences. The beginning of a boy soldier. During the first stages of going into war, Ishmael knew how to survive. Firstly, the military fed him very well so

In Ishmael Beahs memoir A Long Way Gone the author’s natural images reveals his scramble to stay mentally stable. Understanding Beah is only 12 years old; Beah is confused as he loses all his family and friends and scrambles to stay alive as he runs from the rebels who have brutality kill anyone who stand in there way. To begin, in the stillness of nature Beah struggles to keep his mind from wondering.

In the introduction of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he writes, “There were all kinds of stories told about the war that made it sound as if it was happening in a faraway and different land. It wasn’t until refugees started passing through our town that we began to see that it was actually taking place in our country” (Beah 1). During this statement Beah says that he is completely oblivious to the war around him. These people living in Sierra Leone had adapted to the war to the point where their perception had been altered. With this memoir he shares his experiences and obstacles he faces throughout the war to become a beckon of hope in this despairing country. Ishmael uses his social skills, timely luck, and emotional strength, to find the courage to overcome these adversities and survive in and out of the war.

While living in Freetown he had a girlfriend who wanted to know about his past. He would not tell her what has happened to him, so she broke up with him. Nowadays he is more open to sharing his experiences, but only when necessary. He does not tell people what happened to him openly, it brings back bad memories from the war. Writing A Long Way Gone allowed Ishmael to become a bit more willing to recall his time in the war. Sometimes, the smallest things would trigger a bad memory for him. Now he is able to bring back the memories of the war without bringing back all of the pain those memories caused him. Writing allowed him to become a bit more open with his

The themes in A Long Way Gone and What Is the What are evident of violence, corruption and propaganda. Both Ishmael and Valentino have experienced the horrors of civil wars and narrate their similar journeys. “Eggers weaves together three plots, engaging readers in the present and the past, in the historical-political, and the personal" (Brooks. 2010). Not only was this used by Eggers, but by Beah too when writing these two novels. They strategically compare and contrast throughout the novel and allow for the audience to get a greater understanding of these issues.

A Long Way gone is a memoir about Ishmael Beah’s life before and after he was a child soldier. It took a toll on his life when his village was invaded by the rebel soldiers. His family was taken his mom and his little brother everything he had and known was ripped from his reach. Ishmael was a good kid and was kind because of the people around him his community shaped into the person he was when he lived there. He had a good place and had been surround by good people all of his life so it was easy for him to be happy just like the people around him.

A Long Way Gone reflects a child’s ability to survive during harsh times. It’s the story of Ishmael Beah a boy living in Sierra Leone during the time of war. The theme of this story is survival, and how adaptable human beings can be to any situation. Ishmael gets separated from his parents at a very young age. He is left to be with his friends since the rebels have entered their town of Mattru Jong. Ishmael starts to go through a phase in which he starts losing hope in life. He feels as though he has lost himself completely. The story signifies getting back up and putting life back together no matter the damage done. Ishmael is able to recover from his life during the war, and he creates a new life for himself.

“When I was very little, my father used to say, ‘If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die’.” (Beah, 2007, p. 54). Both A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and “Buy Me a Boat” by Chris Jansen show that as long as you have hope, your life can improve. The song by Chris Jansen “Buy Me a Boat” is a light, happy song which inspires hope can be applied to both my life and Ishmael’s life in A Long Way Gone. “Buy Me a Boat” by Chris Jansen helped me understand that you can get better as long as you have hope, and that you have to believe to achieve your goals.

beginning of A Long Way Gone Ishmael was terrified of guns. He didn't want anything to do with them. But once he started in

Hope enables people to move on by providing the thought that maybe tomorrow’s events will be better than today’s. Hope is a theme that remains constant in every part of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Ishmael begins the novel optimistic, believing he will find his family again. This optimism is later lost when Ishmael is recruited by the army to fight against the rebels, causing him to become addicted to drugs and the thrill of killing. Three years after his recruitment, Ishmael is rescued by UNICEF-a group dedicated to rehabilitating child soldiers. During his rehabilitation, Ishmael discovers hope once more by relearning how to trust, love, and have the will to survive. The presence of hope throughout A Long Way Gone enables Ishmael to

Another way the theme, “Always have hope” is shown in A Long Way Gone is through Ishmael`s hope to find his family by keeping his will to live and the memories at the forefront. In Ishmael`s first account of war, his village was overturned by the rebels and his family was split up. Therefore, Ishmael and his friends were left to survive

Ishmael: Well...there's several reasons as to why I named my memoir “A Long Way Gone.” One of them being the physical distance from home itself. During the war, I has to run away from home over and over again and that I was physically gone for such a long time. Another is because the people in my country were a long way gone from their cultures, traditions, and everything that made them who they are because of this violence that have