...A Long Way Gone Essay Matthew Morgan Prof. Carey “On Democracy” Due: 02/27/08 For the “Everybody Reads” assignment I choose to attend the Central library book group discussion. When I first got there I was really surprised because I thought it was going to be a bigger event than what it was. There was only about 10 people total, and 5 of us were students who were there for this exact assignment. It was a really interesting discussion because half of the people that attended were my age and the other half was about two generations older, so there was a very diverse pool of perspectives and opinions. But because there was a large generation gap it was a bit more difficult for me to share my views, so I mainly listened and observed other people’s thoughts. The discussion itself was very helpful because of the different views people had about the memoir. One of the themes of A Long Way Gone that we discussed was the importance of hope. We mainly talked about how this theme was not constant throughout the memoir and that it changed with time. For example one person brought up how at first Ishmael’s only motivator was the hope of his parents being alive, then when he realized that he would never be reunited with them he had lost his hope. It was only when he remembered what his father had said about a person only lives if they have something to live for which gave him his hope back. As far as themes that’s really the only one that we discussed, but we did discuss a lot...
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...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...
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...amount of people, and as such, war and film have gone hand in hand for quite a long time. Many consider the golden age of the “War film” to be the 1970’s to present day, as that was the time in which special effects and other various filming techniques came to fruition. Now, the wars depicted in these films have varied in many ways over the past thirty to forty years, but in what ways? Obviously the conflicts shown vary, but the amount of violence and gore has also varied over time. Research has shown that over the years, war films have been much more violent and graphic as time has gone on. In the article titled "A Content Analysis of Violence in American War Movies" (1991) points are made that since the 1970’s, violence in film has become significantly more frequent. The question arises concerning whether or not this is due to the fact that audiences have been conditioned to the excessive volume of violence over the years. Alternatively, some believe that movies with a lot of violence are the films that producers and directors believe will be successful. The research in the article was broken into the later period, the 1990s to present day, as well as the early period, regarding the 1970s to the 1980s. When researching the amount of violence it was discovered that “during the later period, there was a mean of 22.2 minutes of battle time compared to 11.7 minutes in earlier films” (Monk-Taylor 6). This shows that the magnitude of violence being shown in the films has almost doubled...
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...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...
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...Violence, death and murder. These are the words people never want to hear. In the memoir, “A Long Way Gone,” Ishmael Beah is a young african child, who is turned into a child soldier. He goes thru horrifying changes throughout the novel as he explains his graphic experiences. He explained the memoir in such a graphic and serious tone because he doesn’t wish this nightmare upon anyone else. Ishmael uses all sorts of gruesome language, violence, and gore to alert the reader about always being aware of their surroundings and notifying other people. In the beginning of the book, Ishmael reaches his Grandmother’s village. The village is destroyed by rebels. This is the first place he sees the savageness of the rebels. He watched men fall to the ground bleeding, women dying, children dying, ears bleeding and more, “A woman put her arms around the man and begged him to stand up. He got to his feet and walked toward the van. When he opened the door opposite the driver’s, a...
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...A Long Way Gone is a memoir of Ishmael Beah. At the age of twelve years old his life was changed completely when he was first touched by war when the rebels first attacked his home town, Mogbwemo in Sierra Leone. This book shows the hardships, loneliness, violence and cruelty Ishmael went through. With Ishmael's courage he manages to get through the hard times he faces during his childhood while having lost his innocence. This book is moving and uplifting even with the unimaginable brutality against other humans, Ishmaels unexpected acts of kindness touch your soul. While fleeing the rebels Ishmael and his friends walked from village to village finding a safe place far from the war. At villages they were given food and water and it gave them a sense of happiness even though they know it isn't for long. They knew that their happiness is only temporary and that harder times were coming their way. Ishmael's goal in life was just to survive each passing day. Not every village they came across were they offered food and water, some villages believed they were rebels and men would confront them with spears and axes. Saidu, one of the boys traveling with Beah had lost all hope, “Every time people come at...
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...Odysseus is not a good man because of disloyalty, poor leadership skills, and violence. Many people say odysseus overcame many obstacles to return home and reunite with his son, and wife. He even made that clear by telling Circe. “Circe, now make good a promise you gave me once- it’s time to help me home, my heart longs to be home” (10.532-533) This quote demonstrates that Odysseus does possibly want to truly return home, Because that is what he told Circe. However, his actions did support the words he shared with Circe. Odysseus mounted Circe’s bed, and according to him it was gorgeous. (10.386) Odysseus stayed with Circe for a whole year. Instead of using that time to return home to Ithaca, he received rich food, and lust from Circe....
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...Is (non)violence against oppression immoral? It’s a question to think about, it depends on how someone feels about the situation, it may be in your beliefs. But in my opinion, violence isn’t the smartest way to handle something, a family member can perish or any type of loved ones. Which I wouldn’t desire to experience. Furthermore, in “A Long Way Gone” that’s based on a true story by the author himself Ishmael Beah, was slaved as a young African child by an army to be a soldier. Fleeing the daily life Beah has been going through, refined his life. Due to the fact of Ishmael was a child soldier, a whole community was determined to protest. Which led to Violence, lives were lost and buildings were demolished. In some situations, it’s best to...
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...Sentence Outline Thesis: In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah shows how his hopes and dreams were brought to an abrupt halt. Violence, family and survival caused this child to become a bloodthirsty killer. I. An individual can watch their life change for the worse because of their environment surrounding them. II. Violence was the cause and effect of Beah downfall A. The people of Beah’s village were murdered by the rebels and he is devastated by the gruesome violence B. He joins the army to help protect the rest of his country but he quickly turned into a ruthless killer III. Beah loses his family and he feels like he has no one else to love A. Beah’s family is killed during one of the attacks and he feels like it is him against the world B. He meets a very caring woman, Laura, who eventually adopts Beah and gives him a new start in a new place IV. Beah must learn to survive on his own during dark times in Sierra Leone A. Beah has no family and no one to look over him so he must find a way to survive. That is part of the reason he joins the army. B. He often steals food and clothes and spends long periods of time in the forest hiding from everyone. Conclusion: No one know what life has in store for them, everything can change in a matter of minutes. If a person allows adversity surrounding them to control their life there is a slim chance they will reach...
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...Ishmael Beah had wrong “A long way gone”. He was born November 23, 1980. He was born I Mogbwemo, Bonthe District, Sierra Leone. Beah is an author as well as a human rights activist who rose to fame with his acclaimed memoir, “A long way gone” He is 37 and still alive. When Beah was thirteen he was forced to leave and go off to be a child soldier. There’s not much about his earl school life but he did Graduate from Oberlin College with his bachelor’s degree in political science. When he moved to the United States he joined the Human Rights Watch. Beah said that he believed that returning to the civilized society was more difficult than the act of becoming a child solider. He was living in a Freetown with his Uncle.. Beah face getting back to...
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...fashion that it could have gone either way. I found an article stating, and I quote “Majority Queried In Times Survey Say, Negro Movement Has Gone Too Far, But Few Intend To Change Votes.” –New York Times (Sept. 21st 1964). Now another person questioned in this poll, and I quote “That many neighborhoods have always been known as ‘tough’, but they were white tough neighborhoods, if you know what I mean.” He added, “It was tough to a point, and no more. Now with colored it is a different kind of toughness, it is fear I guess.” I feel like with this last comment that this man had said, it is absolutely true of how the public viewed the civil rights movement, it was a fear, a fear of uncertainty of how to live with each other after being segregated for so long. In during this time the term ‘white backlash’ was used as a term used to give an indication that their voting habits were affected by the changes that has occurred in the civil rights act. Martin Luther King Jr. displayed a method of non violent protests which he referred to as a method of peaceful protest by oppressed people. From the article I read I quote “In a classical non violent situation the oppressed engage in mass demonstrations or in one or more forms of civil disobedience so as to cause the oppressor to retaliate. The object is to plague the oppressor by filling up the jails or cause him to engage in violence on the streets.” The Negro community also stated that the bringing of violence to themselves was to take...
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...Jail and Prison In the criminal justice system once a crime is committed and the criminal has gone to court and has pled guilty, or has gone to trial and has been convicted of the rime it can result in a few different ways. For instance, if the crime was severe enough it could result in jail or prison time. Both jail and prison are two components of the suffering the consequences of committing a crime, and can also determine whether the time fits the crime or was the criminal punished in a fair matter. Some criminal’s crimes are so severe that they are sentenced to life in prison. Jails are facilities designed to hold criminals waiting for a trial. They are also designed to hold inmates serving twelve months or less for the crimes they committed. Federal Prisons are designed for people convicted of federal crimes. State prisons are for criminals convicted of crimes of the state, or of crimes committed in that state. Minimum Security Prisons are the most open and least restricted prisons. They hold criminals convicted of non-violent crimes such as forgery, cheating on taxes, and perjury. Medium Security Prisons are more open then maximum security but less open than minimum security prisons. The inmates are convicted of crimes such as assault and thefts. Maximum Security Prisons generally hold prisoners serving longer sentences. Inmates are convicted of crimes such as murder, kidnapping and other felonies. (library.thinkquest.org) A total institution is place of work and residence...
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...I Will In many ways, violence has affected my life and most others, whether if it was personal or a world issue. In my case, I was brought up in a school where there were a lot of superficial people who believed strongly in Asian stereotypes. Most of the time, I was targeted because I wasn’t smart enough to meet their standards, I wasn’t good at math at all, I didn’t get perfect A’s on everything. Apparently, people thought that was weird. I can still remember the first time they bullied me in second grade after I got second place in the spelling bee, a boy came up to me and basically went on about how stupid I was, encouraging some others to try it out on me as well. It got so bad to the point where I asked my own friend, who had won...
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...Cesar Chavez was a union leader and labor organizer that help to express the words of nonviolent resistance in the world. Chavez was able to develop his ethos throughout his speech and define what nonviolent and violent mean and how the society is expressing those words towards each other. In this passage, Chavez demonstrates his ability by using antithetical arrangement and historical precedent to differentiate nonviolence and violence. In Chavez’s first half and near the end of his speech, he went over what violence and nonviolence and how it affect the world and society.The way Chavez organized his statements demonstrate his use of antithetical arrangement. Chavez stated that nonviolence “supports you if you have a just and moral cause...
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...The decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone involved an estimated 10,000 children fighting for both the rebel forces, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), and for the Sierra Leone government (Jang). Many people know Ishmael Beah’s story about his childhood as a child soldier, but not many know about what he does to help kids who are going through the same thing he went through. Ishmael Beah is a former boy soldier from Sierra Leone who used his awful past as fuel to become a better person and help children who are in the same situation as he was. Ishmael’s childhood was definitely not easy, even before the war. His parents were divorced, and his father went through multiple wives after Ishmael’s mother. Ishmael’s stepmothers, who did not want...
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