Ishmael Beah's Journey Essay

Ishmael Beah is described as a pre-teen, with a love of rap and hip-hop music. He finishes as a drug-addicted killing machine, out avenging the death of his entire family. Before being rescued by a United Nations Program, and eventually fleeing to New York for rehabilitation, it is a tragic and harrowing tale that gives substance to the term ‘Boy Soldier’, that isn’t really understood in most cases. Ishmael gives a gentle portrayal of his life, before the war reached his small village and forever changed his life. Abruptly he becomes fugitive fleeing for his life and eventually into a corrupted teen.

On page 184 he says, “A memory of a town we attacked during a school dance had been triggered. I could hear the terrified cries of teachers and students, could see the blood cover the dance floor.” (184). Also on 190 he describes, “Standing next to a tree with red frozen sap on its bark would bring flashbacks of the many times we executed prisoners by tying them to the trees and shooting them. Their blood stained the trees and never washed off.” (190). While Ishmael has been rehabilitated certain parts of life now trigger his gruesome memories. Such as getting firewood with his cousins and seeing the trees with red frozen sap, and being on the dance floor with Allie. Ishmael while he does still get flashbacks is for the most part fully recovered. In this chapter the transition to the United States was frustrating for Ishmael. Many people made him aggravated by the things they said or did. On page 187 he says after his interview to go to the U.N, “I still wondered why the man who had interviewed me had smiled. I meant what I said and it was not a funny matter.” (187). 2.Why does Ishmael become so frustrated with people who are unaware and just trying to do their

Details were the part I loved most from the book since it captures your attention. At some points, the details left you in suspense like what will happen next? Will he be able to overcome this and that? Will he change after what he has been through? This was how I felt after Beah’s attitude changed after he joined the military (due to lack of men) to fight against the rebels. “We were taken to a nearby banana farm, where we practiced stabbing the banana trees with bayonets. ‘Visualize the banana tree as the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happen to you’… When he said this, we all got angry and drove our knives in and out of the banana trees…” (Beah p.112) The details show how someone feels about certain things and after this happened, it made me wonder if he will overcome what has happened to him or always get “revenge” (which he

A final theme tells us when everything else disappears, there is always love. Ishmael learns this the hard way. He has a kind of family unit with the soldiers that actually carries over into the love and friendship between him and Alhaji. Then, there is the love of Uncle Tommy and his family and their willingness to make Ishmael a son and a brother. Finally, there is the love of people like Esther and Laura who accept him unconditionally and welcome him into their homes when he most needed help and love.

There is so much irony that happens in Beah’s life, it’s impossible to not feel sorry for him. For example, he says, “If we hadn’t stopped to rest on that hill, if we hadn’t run into Gasemu, I would have seen my family, I thought,”. (95) The story behind this quote is that Beah and the rest of his family has been split up for a while now. He then stops in a village and someone there tells him that his family is in the next village over and they were looking for him. As Beah travels to the next village, he meets Gasemu, someone from his old village, and Gasemu asks the boys to help him carry bananas. As soon as they get to a hill and can see the village, they hear gunshots. Beah runs down the hill, only to find everyone in the village already dead. It’s ironic how he was so close to seeing his family again but is minutes late because he stopped for Gasemu. Another example is when he says, “But instead of the usual sounds that brought the city to life, it was woken that morning by gunshots erupting…”. (202) In this quote, Beah is finally stable after being a soldier, and is living peacefully and happily because he is far away from the war. Ironically, the war ends up spreading to Freetown, where he is staying, even though it's not a typical spot for war. All these ironic things add to Beah’s terrible life. These ironic experiences were shared to show that life and society can be

Ishmael Beah fought a war that was very tense against the rebels which made everyone depressed. Ishmael the author of the book A Long Way Gone was fighting a war against the devilish rebels who change everything in his life. Beah does justify his actions because he wants to get back at the rebels for killing his family. They are justified since his family and friends were killed by the rebels, he basically was forced into becoming a child soldier to fight the rebels from destroying and killing and he witnessed his own village being destroyed.

In chapter 7 the village that Beah is staying in gets attacked and Beah says, “[He] had no time to go look for [Junior], since the attack was so sudden, but instead had to run into the bush alone” (Beah 45). In this situation, Beah could have chosen to go look for Junior even though it would have been dangerous. However, he puts his own safety above Junior’s and leaves him to fend for himself. Beah’s firsthand account of his life during a time of war provides real-world examples of how people who are placed in dangerous situations are willing to sacrifice other’s safety for their own. Another example of people leaving others to fend for themselves in A Long Way Gone was in chapter 4 when Beah and his group were traveling across a swamp and “one boy among the last batch to cross the clearing was too slow.

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

After his home was attacked, he fled away to the only escape route out of town. In fact, “Everyone headed for it” (24). He was no longer living like a normal boy, instead, he now is a wanderer without a home. Instead of gaining friends now, he began losing them. His friend once ate an animal and then “Saidu’s body was washed and prepared for burial the next day” (85). Ishmael lost his closest friends to him because of the war. Never in his life had he lost someone close to him like that, and especially not because of war. Not only that, Ishmael joined the army. He was forced to do so in order to live. He used to be innocent and not have to join any war but now, “With trembling hands I took the gun, saluted him, and ran to the back of the line, still holding the gun but afraid to look at it" (111). Ishmael is now carrying a gun and has joined the military to kill the enemy. An army is a place where you are trained to kill, and now Ishmael, only a boy, is joining that group. Not only that, Ishmael also took various drugs. Some days the only things he ate was “...sardines and corned beef with gar, sniff cocaine, brown brown, and take some white capsules” (122). He could not get off of them and would do anything to get more. He had never taken drugs before, but now he was addicted to them and would not get off of them. But, by far, the largest transformation is that Ishmael began to kill people. He once played a “game” where

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 had become a victim from the effect of the war because of the impact it had made on his life and how it made him change. While

Ishmael Beah changes a lot once he becomes a soldier and when he does he gets manipulated.“So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many as I could but I didn't feel better.” This quote shows how he has changed because his first character he was scared to even see or hold a gun. After the lieutenant gives him a name and encourages him and praises him for doing these types of things he thinks its ok. “The prisoner leaned his weight on me as he gave out his last breath.I dropped him on the ground and wiped my bayonet on him”. This quote shows how different he is he doesn't even flinch when the prisoner is watching him while he kills him. He doesn't look away is sickness when his blood spills and even is happy he didnt the fastest and gets rewarded. He has changed significantly but once he is separated from corruption he changes

This implies the abuse of power of the government as they revoked the freedoms of its citizens for war, the abrupt change and decisions those had to go through and make, and the loss of innocence & childhood due to the corrupt governance that children weren't given the choice to become a child soldier. Beah always used the factors of perseverance, relationships, and lessons he had been taught to overcome the hardships to continue his journey and to keep his sight of hope: "When I was little, my father used to say, "If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen". I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive" (Beah 54). Even in the midst of all of the troubling times, he always kept what he had been told and the memories of his loved ones very close to him and in mind to be able to never fully be swallowed by the dark clouds of the oppressive system and those who had abused their

We know this when Beah says “It was clear from the tone of his voice that he didn’t want me around and didn’t trust me. I looked at the curious and skeptical faces of the children and the woman. I was glad to see other faces and at the same time disappointed that the war had destroyed the enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people. Even a twelve-year-old couldn 't be trusted anymore,” (48). Ishmael Beah’s goal it to reach a city named Bonthe, where safety awaits him. On his journey, he runs into non rebels. Because the country’s military is so small, they need help in eliminating the rebellion. They have no choice but to forcefully recruit children and minors for help. Unfortunately for Beah, he is picked up by these non rebels and is forced to fight against the rebellion. It is at this time that Beah realizes that he has the ability to carry out vicious and horrible acts. However, this was not his fate. Luckily, UNICEF was able to contact him and remove him from the violence. He eventually learns to forgive himself of what he has done and transforms into a caring, loving human being. Beah, now twenty-six years old, is happily married and living in the United States. Even with a hopeful future ahead of him, his past will stay with him forever. I believe that Ishmael Beah wrote A Long Way

The more people Ishmael loses, the less he has to fight for- the less he has to hope for. Upon finding his family’s ashes, Ishmael is enraged- not hopeless. Ishmael’s hope is alive, but shrinking as Gasemu indicates when he says, “Your forehead used to glow naturally when you were just a child … We thought it was because you were happy all the time. Your mother said you even smiled when you slept. But when you started your troublesomeness and were angry, your forehead glowed even more…And here you are, it isn’t shining anymore,” (Beah 92). Ishmael’s forehead did not glow because he was mad or sad or embarrassed or happy. Ishmael’s forehead glowed because he was passionate and hopeful. The angrier he got when he was younger, the more his forehead glowed seeing as he believed in his anger. Despite the fact that his hope shrank when he was faced with the death of his family, the threat of the rebels, and the fear of dying, these events did not destroy Ishmael’s hope- Ismael’s hope begins its descent to nothingness when he becomes a child soldier and, consequently, a drug addict. When Ishmael no longer mourns the death of human life, his hope is lost. When Ishmael cannot care less if he lives or dies, his hope is lost. When he would rather continue killing as