...Violence in A Long Way Gone In the novel, A Long Way Gone, there were a lot of acts of violence that revolved around the main character, Ishmael Beah. Much of this violence was similar to the violence in chapter 11 of How To Read Literature Like a Professor. The many types of violence in this book have different functions. The second book explains the functions, symbolical meaning, and types of violence. Violence can have a symbolic or thematic function. It shows us that violence lurks in everyday tasks and that violence is always metaphorical. There are two types of violence: injury and narrative. Injury violence is when authors cause characters to harm others. Narrative violence is the general harm of characters. The characters do nothing to cause this violence. Injury violence occurs throughout the entirety of the novel. The rebel forces attacked Ishmael's town and killed most of the civilians. An example of narrative violence is when Ishmael's uncle died from a disease. The author includes this violence to spur action, cause plot complications, and trigger stress in other characters. When the rebels attacked Ishmael's village he was separated from the rest of his family. It was up to Ishmael to decide whether he wanted to risk his life to search for his family or if he wanted to flee for safety. Later in the novel Ishmael and his group of stay in a village. The village is attacked, but Ishmael is able to escape just in time. However he has also lost his friends...
Words: 503 - Pages: 3
...Justin Klein Mrs. Henricks English 102: 21 January 2014 Beneficial Rap The novel A Long Way Gone describes the way of life of a young child solider. Ishmael Beah, the author of this novel, gives dramatic detail throughout the book of his various problems and difficulties he has dealt with over time. Not only does the problems he has effect his family, but his close friends as well. One of Ishmael’s hobbies was listening to rap music with his friends. He often talked about his favorite artists for rap such as Naughty by Nature and LL Cool J. Not only did Ishmael enjoy listening to rap, but he also performed in talent shows with his friends all rapping together. Ismael often finds himself in terrible situations throughout the war. He and his friends must learn to survive with what they have and what they find. Times are so rough for Ismael and his friends that they almost lose all hope. Rap music brings joy to Ismael when times are tough. Ishmael likes the beats, and although he doesn't understand it all he seems to like the masculine messages behind the music. The tapes that he constantly carries around with him reminds everyone that he is still a boy. Although he goes through some pretty horrific experiences, the cassette tapes remind the readers and Ishmael of his innocence. At various times the music even saves the boys from villagers’ fears that they are child soldiers. Not only does he enjoy this music, but the music often saves his life. When Ismael went...
Words: 887 - Pages: 4
...CIS110-041 29 September 2014 A Long Way Gone Essay Questions 1. At the beginning of the novel, Ishmael describes war as too abstract for his mind to understand. He describes this as the mindset for all of the other people in his village as well. When Ishmael and his friends have nowhere to go, they roam nearby cities and what they see is unbearable to their young eyes. All of the destruction, dead bodies, and ransacked homes really put things in perspective for young Ishmael. I feel like this is the first time that Ishmael realizes what is really happening around him. When Ishmael is forced into the army, killing becomes his second nature. He is also on drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and “brown brown” to help conceal his emotions. Dead bodies and carrying an AK-47 becomes a normal, every day thing for Ishmael. He completely loses sight of any sort of morals or self-respect that he had for himself as a young child. Ishmael had transformed from an innocent, unaware kid into a cold-blooded killer. Later on in the book, UNICEF rescues Ishmael and the other child soldiers that were in his army. UNICEF handed over Ishmael to the United Nations and they then entered him into rehab. After the rehab and all of the caring people, especially from one particular nurse named Esther, Ishmael is finally able to forgive himself. Being dehumanized was very easy for Ishmael, but reclaiming his humanity was extremely hard. 2. From previous years of studying about Africa and all the problems...
Words: 428 - Pages: 2
...In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, many events change his life and he has to choose to live with them or die. Ishmael has changed because of several major events that he lived through and has adapted and that has helped him survive in his war ravaged country. He has changed from young, innocent boy to mindless child solider to a proper adult but he still survives and that makes him very resilient. Though it was hard he found himself amongst war. One of the first major events was that he lost his parents. He was in Mattru Jong when rebels attacked his home in Mogbwemo. Slowly by surely wounded people started trickling in and he found out that way that he had lost his parents. His parents weren’t dead, just lost in the country. That changed him because it was the first of many wounds on his body and soul. Throughout the book he searches for them but they remain elusive and not inflicting wounds on the mortal body but instead ripping a large hole in his heart. “The sun peacefully sailed through the white clouds, birds sang from tree tops, the trees danced to the quiet wind. I still couldn’t believe the war had actually reached our home. It was impossible, I thought. We had left home the day before, there had been no indication the rebels were near.” (Beah, 10)He couldn’t believe it. It was just not possible. Your home is a fortress until it shatters. The second major event was becoming a boy solider at a young age. “The idea of death didn’t cross...
Words: 578 - Pages: 3
...A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah was an innocent boy who enjoyed playing football, swimming in the streams, and even started a rap and dance group with his friends and older brother. The group discovered their love for rap music from old cassette tapes of O.P.P, Run D.M.C, and the Sugarhill Gang. Ishmael and Junior, along with their other friends cherished these few hip hop and rap cassette tapes. Ishmael constantly carried these couple tapes on him at all times. They choreographed dance routines and memorized all of the lyrics. The boys also entered a talent show in a close town. Ishmael, Junior, Talloi, and Mohamed have been singing and dancing to rap music since they first formed the group when Ishmael was only eight years old. They learned of rap during a visit to Mobimbi, where their fathers worked for an American company. They were transfixed by the music and returned to Mobimbi as often as they could to watch rap on their big television. Ishmael was shocked mostly because the black men could speak English so well and so quickly to the beat (Lisa). Ishmael and his group were inspired by the rap music. Music represented Ishmael’s transformation into the modern world. The entire group is mesmerized by rap musicians. Music became a way to escape reality of the war, express themselves by writing lyrics, and it eventually saves their lives. Ishmael and the boys all worked together as a group to create music. They also started changing the way they would dress, act, and...
Words: 1069 - Pages: 5
...Aj Jackson Ehrensaft 12/1/13 A long way gone essay Ishmael Beah shows a loss of innocence all throughout his book "A long way gone". He shows us just how his childhood was taken from him and how that translates into loosing his innocence in the following ways. In the beginning of the story he talks about how horrific it was to see his village ransacked and burned. He talks about how scared he is like when the rebels found him and he looked into his brother's eyes and could feel the fear but tried to hide it. He was just trying to survive and yet people at other villages saw him as a threat and this made him sad. He didn't understand why people could be afraid of him when he was just an innocent kid trying to stay alive after he had lost everything. The first part in the story where I think Ishmael starts to lose his innocence is when he and his friends steal corn from a younger boy so they can eat. "One evening we actually chased a little boy who was eating two boiled ears of corn by himself. He was about five years old and was enjoying the corn that he held in both hands, taking turns biting each ear. We didn't say a word or even look at each other. Rather, we rushed on the boy at the same time, and before he knew what was happening, we had taken the corn from him."(Beah 30). I don't believe he completely loses his innocence because he did it to survive not for the thrill of doing it. "I felt guilty about it for a few minutes, but in our position...
Words: 790 - Pages: 4
...The autobiography untitled A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah explores his time as a child soldier for the Sierra Leone Armed Forces during the country’s civil war. During the course of the book, Beah recounts his time of being brainwashed into being a child soldier after his family and entire town is brutally murdered by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), while Beah is away with friends to attend a talent show. After years of committing violent crimes with the rebel army, and abusing various drugs such as “brown-brown” during his teenage years, Beah is removed from the rebel army by UNICEF and taken to a rehabilitation center where he heals from his time in the army and begins to opens up to others and learns to forgives himself and the people...
Words: 1306 - Pages: 6
...Child Soldiers still deserve to play a card game of war instead of fighting in a real with real guns.This means that child soldiers are still kids and deserve happiness even after what they have done or have lost their innocence. Child Soldiers can be scarred after committing terrible things, or from seeing horrific things,but that doesn't mean they are all monsters and bad people. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah on page 169 he says, “I believe children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.” Ishmael Beah was forced to be a child soldier at the age of 12. He was in the war from the ages of 12-15. He spent time in a home to help him recover; this proves that they can regain happiness. Child Soldiers can be ‘reborn’,...
Words: 934 - Pages: 4
...A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah illustrates Beah’s childhood under Sierra Leone's Civil war in the 1990s. The book recounts Beah’s experience as a 12 year old boy struggling to find his family. Although this book mainly follows Beah, it also gives a lot of insight on the instability in African countries like Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah was a normal child before the Civil war in Sierra Leone, which is what the beginning of the book illustrates. In the early chapters, Beah talks about his childhood, which seemed to be very normal (Beah, 6). However, his childhood would take a drastic turn for the worse. When visiting his friends in Mattru Jong, Beah runs into swarms of people talking of rebellion. One passerby warned...
Words: 1013 - Pages: 5
...In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, family can be circumstantial rather than genetic, they are the people who stand by you, and push you through difficult times. Family can be circumstantial rather than genetic. This theme is especially apparent in this novel. Throughout the book, there are several characters who support Ishmael and become his family. From the six boys whom he meets in a passing village, to the nurse at the rehabilitation center. During the war, Ishmael’s life is constantly changing, and the walls around him are collapsing day after day, as he watches the people in his life that mean the most to him, come and go. Even at the loneliest points of his travels, he used the memory of his family to push through the difficulties. After the war began, Ishmael, his older brother Junior, and four others boys, were left to fend for themselves, because they were separated from their parents and siblings when the war initiated. After their hiding spot in Mattru Jong was infested by the rebels, they had to begin walking as far away from the war as possible. One day as the boys were visiting a nearby village, a group of rebels came out of nowhere and started interrogating them. Luckily, in the distance was the sound of gunshots, the boys were able to remain safe, but in all the commotion, they were...
Words: 895 - Pages: 4
...Ishmael Beah's memoirs regarding their experience with the Sierra Leone Civil War, it's evident that the authors endured similar suffering and hardships. The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara with Susan McClellan and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah have many similarities in regards to the two themes; loss of innocence and survival despite great suffering. Mariatu and Ishmael thoroughly demonstrated resilience all while experiencing the struggles of being a child during war. To start, both characters recalled memories of family members saying important things to them in order to give themselves hope for survival. On page 45 of The Bite of the Mango, Mariatu recalls her grandmother saying, “...every person has a spirit watching over him or her. Some people, if they’re really good, have two or three spirits. These spirits are often relatives who have died, like a grandfather, like Santigie, and sometimes they come to you in the guise of an animal, a bird or a reptile.” This helped Mariatu continue on her journey to safety, feeling like she had a guardian angel. As for Ishmael, page...
Words: 953 - Pages: 4
...The novel, “A Long Way Gone”, is filled with cultural stories and myths. The tale of the “Wild Pigs” and the “Bra Spider” are told in this novel. The tale of the “Wild Pigs” is about how a man could transform into a pig. He would lead wild pigs into a clear opening, where they could not escape. He would eat a plant, and transform into a human again, killing the wild pigs afterwards. The other pigs soon learned about what this man was doing and destroyed all of the plants. When the man lead them into the clearing, he went to go eat the plant, only to discover that it was destroyed. The wild pigs soon killed him and they kill any humans they run find in the woods, as revenge. The story of the “Bra Spider” was that everyone was having feasts all day. The Bra Spider gave each leader of the village a rope, and to tug it hard when it was time to eat and the Bra Spider would come to feast on all the food with the others. He starved himself for days while waiting for the day of the...
Words: 486 - Pages: 2
...A Long Way Gone: Essay Final As I read the book, A Long Way Gone, I couldn’t help but notice that violence plays a key role throughout the story. As a child, Ishmael, to the best of his ability, had tried to overcome his encounters with violence, from the time where he was forced to be a child soldier, marching through enemy territory, gunfire, rain and even overcame the death of his family. Though it is something I would never wish upon anyone, the violence that Ishmael went through in a way helped shape him into the person he is today. The violence that he endured not only left him with long lasting damage, affecting him with emotionally and physically, but also the community and the people around him. Throughout the story, he describes...
Words: 711 - Pages: 3
...Throughout the book, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, we see that he faces many challenges and conflicts. These challenges prevent Ishmael from reaching safety and living a normal life back in Sierra Leone. Most of the time, the main character is facing challenges that are caused by other people. These people, like Ishmael, are trying to get away from the war that has caused chaos in the country. Children and teens around his age were most likely to be thrown into the war to fight either on the Sierra Leonean government’s side or the rebels, the Revolutionary United Front. The people that saw Ishmael and his friends, they tried to kill them because they could have been rebels. All of the problems he faces prevent Ishmael and his friends from getting somewhere safe. First, we see Ishmael running away from his home in Sierra Leone. Once a peaceful village full of music and laughter , then was brutally attacked by the...
Words: 1202 - Pages: 5
...A Long Way Gone In the book, “A Long Way Gone,” the main character Ishmael goes through some tough situations and how they deal with it. Ways that Ishmael went with Adversity is how he looks at someone else as a different person, how he comes to having himself with a shelter in different situations.Ishmael overcomes things without them letting it pull him down. One way that Ishmael deals with adversity is how he comes together to make himself a shelter. He has nothing else he can do when he’s walking around, traveling by himself. He said, “That was when i finally came to accept that i was lost and it was going to take a while to get out of where I was.” While other people may be struggling he finds his ways in these woods that he can make himself a better shelter, knowing that he is going to be staying there for awhile. “I decided to make my new home a little bit more comfortable by adding leaves to the weaved branches to make them less hard to sleep on.” Ishmael said. He finds different ways to make his position better...
Words: 461 - Pages: 2
