Book Analysis: A Long Way Gone

While being face to face with war, Ishmael illustrates what he, as well as his life, has become, “My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector and my rule was to kill or be killed…” (Beah, p.126). With these declarations, the reader can clearly comprehend his lack of innocence and empathy. He has become a unfeeling, cold-blooded soldier trained to kill or be killed and survival is his ultimate goal. Later on in the book, the reader is informed of the barbaric scene that takes place in Benin Home, a rehabilitation center. When Ishmael arrives at this site, he ruthlessly interrogates a couple of his housemates “I took out my grenade and put my fingers inside the pin. 'Do you boys want this to be your last meal, or do you want to answer his question?”(Beah, p.133). Undoubtedly, this is not normal behavior for a 15-year old and when he displays this conduct, it can be unquestionably said that Ishmael has lost all sense of innocence and emotion. In this section of his story, Ishmael is threatening to kill boys his own age, which shows how deviated he has become from his original character and sense. Both of these examples verify that Ishmael Beah in nowhere near the innocent, rap-enthusiast and family loving boy he once was. The child that was Ishmael Beah is now dead, and in his place stands a cold-hearted

The purpose of the book A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier written by Ishmael Beah, is to show the evil behind arming children and having them fight. Beah tells a story of a personal experience of being a child forced to become a soldier, and in his story there are many rhetorical strategies that he uses. Beah uses rhetorical strategies such as Onomatopoeia, Anaphora, and Hyperbole. He uses these strategies to make the story a more sorrowful story and allow the readers to feel a certain type of connection or understanding to him. Ishmael who is suffering from what is going on around his villages goes through many obstacles with his brother and their friends. These strategies make the story more personal because they give out a lot of detail and lets the reader really see the perspective of Ishmael.

”At first she just listened to me, and then gradually started asking questions to make me talk about the lives I had lived….‘None of these things are your fault,’ she would always say…I heard that phrase from every staff member--and frankly I had always hated it--I began that day to believe it.(164)” Ishmael Beah was a 12-year-old boy living in Sierra Leone at the beginning of the book. Sierra Leone was having a war which concluded too many people dying, and running trying to survive. Ishmael Beah joined the war from being 13 years old to 15 years old, he was drugged to have more energy and brainwashed to have the mindset to kill. Ishmael Beah uses characterization in order to show how Ishmael struggles to change from a child trying to survive, to a drugged ruthless soldier who must recover in rehabilitation.

“I have been rehabilitated now, so don’t be afraid of me. I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child” (Beah 199). Ishmael Beah had a long road to rehabilitate but he was able to rehabilitate because he had vital forces shaping him. In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, a long way gone, Ishmael was a child soldier in Sierra Leone. He wrote a memoir sharing his experiences of being a child soldier and of him rehabilitation. During 1991 to 2002 there was a vicious civil war going on in the western African country of Sierra Leone between the RUF rebels and the government forces. Ishmael Beah was a young 10-year-old boy who lived in a small village, he liked rap music and dancing hip hop with his friends. Ishmael was never affected by the war until one day when

In the memoir of Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah states that his life’s journey has been a huge obstacle, but has learned to overcome that struggle by venting while the two contradictory sides continue their battling. Beah accomplishes his goal of explaining to the reader his point of view through the use of rhetorical questions, scenic narration, and parallelism. Ishmael Beah’s apparent purpose is to share personal accounts of his life with his fellow country men, in a country where war affects people to a level beyond the imagination. He is able to apply his purpose using a grotesque and bitter tone. Beah approaches his audience of ordinary people in this manner in order to vent his feelings about war by

In the memoir A long Way Gone Ishmael Beah states “When I was young, 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 54). Throughout the war Ismael Beah survives many difficult situations, that make him think is it worth it to keep running. Ishmael Beah, always remembers what his dad said to motivate him to try and keep surviving the war. Ishmael Beah used adaptability, the kindness of others and bravery to overcome the adversities of the war in Sierra Leone.

There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of these child soldiers  , Ishmael Beah is a child who lived most of his childhood in the war   . He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words according to  http://www.alongwaygone.com/index.html and his memoir “A Long Way Gone”. The war had made ishmael have perseverance  in the long run , inference that he was brainwashed by the war and that ishmael was a very hopeful child always wishing for better days.

Ishmael Beah was at the age of thirteen when his childhood and innocence was taken from him. For example, Beah says “My childhood had gone without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen”(30). It happened so quickly. He was frantic with worry. Beah was forced to join the Sierra Leone military. It was not until later he himself started to believe he has lost his innocence. At this young age he was killing the rebels that traumatized him purely to seek revenge and to survive. His hate for the rebels was very strong, “Whenever I looked at the rebels during raids, I got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where I had lost my family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many

Ishmael Beah’s book, A Long Way Gone, details his harsh life as a child soldier. The editorial and the book have different structures, but both have the secondary purpose of persuading readers against child soldiers. Text types cause differing structures due to their differing primary purposes.

For this book analysis, I read the book A Piece of Cake by Cupcake brown. It is a memoir told by Cupcake about her life. She starts the book at age 11, when she was living a normal and pleasant life with her mother in San Diego. She was quite close to her along with her step father (who, at the time, she thought was her biological father), and her uncle. Then out of nowhere, she finds her mother dead in her room and her life is shaken into disaster. The court system had to turn both her and her brother over to her biological father whom she never met, instead of giving her to the man she was raised by. Her father then sent her to a foster home where she was raped and beaten constantly. When she

In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah encourages the opinion that everyone is responsible for his/her own actions in all cases. Beah proves this opinion to be true through death, thievery, and violence.

At 12 years old children should be playing sports and living fun, healthy lives. This is opposite of Beah’s childhood experience. It is difficult for one to imagine the fear that would cripple a child when war is brought to their front door. Beah was just a child when he had to experience the devastation of losing his family. How could a 12 year old properly grieve

The core pages in the Big Book structure their information in a step by step fashion. It begins with Bill’s Story. The story of how Bill started his own journey through alcoholism and became a founding member of A.A. The following chapters target the alcoholic in different areas of their life. Chapter two and three talk about how, through science, spirituality, and personal experience, the founding authors discovered the solution to their alcoholic illness and the ways they could beat it. Chapter four targets the alcoholic who may shy away from the religious or spiritual talk about “God” and how the program handles the idea of God or a “higher power” as those in the group see it. Chapter five and six are the nuts

In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah is recruited into the war with similar tactics; default national pride. After his family, friends, village, and life was destroyed by rebels, he becomes angry and hateful towards them. Seeing as the only group fighting against the rebels was the Sierra Leone army, Beah instinctively became more pro-government, and wanted to fight for revenge and to ensure that he, his peers, and other innocent people would not be hurt by them. A second reason that people (tough not necessarily the main characters) in the two stories enlisted was because of the way war was portrayed. In All Quiet on the Western Front, during Paul’s time spent at home, soldeirs were considered heroes and called “the Iron Youth” (Remarque 28). In addition to this, civilians believed that life was better at the front, because, as Paul’s German-master says, “Naturally it's worse here. Naturally. The best for our soldiers every time, that goes without saying.” Young boys are led to believe that not only will the war make them good citizens and possibly heroes, but also that they will be fed well and taken care of. While war was less glamorized for civilians at the start of Beah’s story, when entering camp, it was observed that fighters sat around watching

Beah is ask with other boys to fight for the government in a village they were taken to. The government force was beginning to dwindle and the rebels had the village surrounded. In this scene we see the lieutenant have to make a decision. Either have the village taken by the rebels and more than likely everyone dies or recruit the boys to fight. The lieutenant let anyone