The Characteristics Of A Hero In A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

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.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be in the center of a war as an adolescent or how the people who experienced war feel after it all ends? Well, Ishmael Beah is an activist and writer, but also was a child soldier in a war in Sierra Leone. He didn't have a choice other than to join the army if he wanted to survive. Due to the war in Sierra Leone, Beah faced many hardships that impacted his life in a negative way.

War impacts the lives of many people by taking away their families, homes, and old lifestyle in general. People suffer through loss of many valuable things that force them to live a new way that may be hard to adapt to. In the autobiography called A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he writes about his struggles to live through the civil war in Sierra Leone. The author, Ishmael, was very young when the war started. His village was attacked by the Rebels causing his family to run searching for safety and along the way they were split up. Ishmael had to find a way to survive on his own. Along his journey he was found by Africa’s military and forced to join the soldiers. Ishmael had to do many things he regrets while fighting for the military. Ishmael

Ishmael Beah shows many different traits in “A Long Way Gone”. Ishmael is a victim and a victimizer. War can make you do many things. It can make you do good things and it can make you do bad things. War can do good things for you and bad things to you. War can change how you think and act. It can change your morals. War does many things to people. Ishmael was a victim, because his family was killed from it. And his whole childhood was messed up from it. All his innocence was taken away he had to grow up fast. It turned him into a survivor. The war also turned a kid into a killer. It turned into a kid who would never hurt a fly into a person who enjoys torturing people. War changed ishmael into a victimiser, because he tortured people instead

A Long Way Gone is a heartbreaking story on how war can change lives. Ishmael Beah, who is also the author, tells the true story of his life and becoming a young soldier against his will. Ishmael finds himself committing acts he could never do normally, such as stealing, killing, and doing drugs. It all started when Ishmael’s village was attacked. Ishmael and his friends are forced to wander from village to village. Eventually, Ishmael is recruited and becomes a soldier. He is forced to kill and commit acts of violence he could never see himself doing.

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 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 A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah, a soldier with the Sierra Leone army during its civil war, has many life changing events that he has to live with forever. Ishmael is taken far away from his childhood dreams when an unexpected civil war breaks out in his hometown. Ishmael had a loss of innocence when he was younger which caused him to become what he became. Ishmael was a young boy who was introduced to war at 12 years old. He lost friends and experienced the horrific results from the rebels attacks.

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.

A war can have a ton of effects on a person, some of them are worse than others. Ishmael Beah is the author of “ A Long Way Gone”. Ishmael was forced into a war that he did not want to get involved in. As a child Ishmael was not violent he was not someone who wanted to kill people for revenge. Soon after his village is attacked, he has to run and keep safety, but soon after he is dragged into the war as a child soldier. Ishmael had no choice but to fight and kill people, it was the only way he would survive. Ishmael is both a victim and a victimizer, he has been hurt ,but he has also killed other making them victims.

“If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen...” (pg. 54). Throughout the course of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, we familiarize ourselves with the exceptional hardships that Ishmael has experienced as a child soldier, in Sierra Leone, and what actions he takes to overcome them. Despite the fact that Ishmael has been through these devastating hardships and that he became the fear that he himself feared, Ishmael is able to instill hope and keep the reader going through the themes of powerful memories, nature and redemption. He does this through the use of powerful memories that contrast the fear and danger of the war with the remembrance of the beauty of life. Furthermore, nature leaves the reader striving

“He never said anything back then and didn’t get upset by what they said.” (Beah, 2007, p. 91) Living freely, this man is a spirited human, not suffering but taking the pain. Pleasant people in ‘A Long Way Gone” are the selfless, secure souls. Next, on page 119, Ishmael remarks “I was not afraid of the lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them.” At the front lines of his first battle as a soldier, trained to fight and through with living fearfully. The water rises and Ishmael builds his wall. Also, on page 187 Ishmael utilizes brutal honesty with his interviewer, never questioning himself, “I meant what I said and it was not a funny matter.” Embodying the confidence of someone choosing to stay when everyone else runs, surviving the war. In conclusion “I Lived” by OneRepublic (2013) the pinnacle of connections between the real world and literary devices in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (2007), reflecting the significance of courage and all it can get you

In the story, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael’s life experiences while escaping the war show how everything in life should be cherished, because one day those great features are there but they can easily be taken away. Ishmael Beah has experienced the traumatizing effect of war and how it can tear someone apart and morph them into a completely different person. This happened to Ishmael himself. He was brainwashed and his mind was molded into believing that revenge is the answer to the deaths of his family members. This essentially is why he puts his safety and wellbeing at risk. He goes from being a twelve year old boy who heard stories of the war, but never imagined it chasing after him, to running away from this inescapable war only

Throughout the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael faces a plentiful amount of challenges and conflicts. In the book there are four main conflicts that Ishmael faces and overcomes. These conflicts include Ishmael running away from the war, his family, and his friends, Ishmael's entire family dying and him becoming a soldier at the age of 13, Ishmael going through rehabilitation, and Ishmael trying to move to a safer area when war meets Freetown.

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