A Long Way Gone Character Analysis Essay

Ishmael was given drugs like cocaine, cannabis, and methamphetamines as an adolescent. The Army got Ismael hooked on drugs:” He handed them to each of us with a cup of water. “The corporal said it will boost your energy” (116) ALWG. The Army gave Ishmael drugs to manipulate him by making him dependent on these drugs. Ishmael was forced, to kill other young men like him by the army: “The corporal gave the signal with a pistol shot and I grabbed the man's head and slit his throat in one fluid motion” (125) ALWG.

A Long Way Gone Book Review A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a very powerful memoir that shows his experiences as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. His writings show how he went from a regular child living day to day to a violent, bloodthirsty soldier trying to survive. I enjoyed this book because Beah’s writing is honest and blunt, and he’s not afraid to describe the horrible violence and trauma he and his comrades endured as young soldiers. Despite the harsh reality of the book, Beah writes with faith and courage.

In Ishmael Beah’s personal memoir, A Long Way Gone, music courses through the story quite often. Music is first seen in Ishmael’s peaceful childhood. He and his friends enjoy singing and dancing along to music, in particular, Rap Music. As the story progresses, and the war becomes more prevalent in the young boys lives, rap continues to play a substantial role in their lives, just in a different way. At the end of Ishmael’s life story, there is yet another role that music plays.

Many people go through things they consider hard in their lives. For many teens today this can be breaking up with someone, breaking their phone, and fighting with their friends. But, for Ishmael Beah his struggles are harder than that. He has to go without his family, he ends up doing drugs, and has to kill people to survive. In “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah, all these struggles are true for him and he has to find a way to live through them and learn how to survive without lots of food and water.

Ishmael is unique because he is both the inflictor and victim. Throughout his “service” as a child soldier underneath the Government’s army, Ishmael was repeatedly drugged and manipulated. These alterations included the glorification of war movies and the consumption of destructive substances (Beah ). Ishmael had never been this way before; he was once just an ordinary Sierra Leonean boy. In the time before he became a soldier, Ishmael talks about the distrust people felt towards each other.

It was the only way to survive” (Beah 29). Following the outbreak of war, resources were scarce so the boys turned to crime to feed their hunger. The fulfillment's of Ishmael's physiological needs brought him strength to stay safe. During

Not experiencing war is a luxury many people unfortunately do not get; however, Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone, lives and survives the war, though not without heartache. With war there is always fear, death, and hell. Ishmael Beah proves war is hell through the killing of civilians, the distrust, and the after effects of the war. Ishmael proves war is hell through the killing of civilians. Many innocent bystanders of the war are forced out of their homes, made to run for their lives.

The human condition is full of paradoxes and double meanings. We can commit the most shocking and terrible acts, but we can complete the most virtuous and honorable feats. Ishmael Beah describes the appalling and violent behavior he and other children exhibited toward the human life during his time in the Sierra Leonean civil war in his memoir, A Long Way Gone. Beah also details the forgiveness and kindness of complete strangers that helped him become the man that fate meant him to be. Homo sapiens are complex creatures brimming with irony and surprises.

The major theme in the story A Long Way Gone is that with family and love a person can make it through anything. Overall Ishmael’s story is a very powerful, eye opening read; it informs people on a subject that some know little to nothing about, the civil war in Sierra Leone. Beah uses the theme of family and love, along with the use of symbolism and other literary devices, to inform a larger audience of the issues that he and others had to face while trying to survive in a war zone. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war.

In the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael has to overcome his fears and desperation especially when he ends up in villages that dislike little kids because of the assumption that they are rebel soldiers. Sometimes he comes face to face with death like the time when some of the villagers who were suffering the civil war, capture Ishmael and his new accompanied friends they were saying ”We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding. The crowds shouted, drown the rebels”(Beah 38). When the village guards found a rap cassette in Ishmael's pocket they played the music and it pleased the chief and so they were excused from execution and as a result they were offered to also stay in the village for how long they wanted. This part in the story paves a path from Ishmael to talk and although that was one of his major obstacles pertaining to his life he succeeded and faced adversity by pleading that they were not rebels but

Before Ishmael was thrown into the chaos of war, he and his brother and friends were part of a rap dance group. The carefree nature and fun music of this group reflects his thoughts and emotions before the

At the age of 13 till the age of 16 the author, Ishmael Beah, pulls himself through many terrible conflicts in Sierra Leone. The author uses conflict to show his readers the realism of his story. By using conflict in many different ways, it allows readers to gain an understanding of how Ishmael struggles changed his life for worse and for better. By using person vs person, person vs society, person vs self, and person vs nature conflict the author is opening doors allowing readers to get a full understanding of Ishmael 's challenges of a life in war. The most commonly seen conflict in ‘A Long Way Gone’ is person vs society.

Don’t call me Ishmael! Introduction Self-esteem and self-image is a common issue that our teenagers suffer from. ‘Don’t call me Ishmael’ written by Michael Gerard Baver is about a a boy named Ishmael Leseur. He has low self-esteem and low self-image, as Ishmael said on page ‘5’ “In fact, if brains were cars, prue would be a Rolls Royce while I would be a Goggomobil up on blocks with half it’s engine missing.”

Later, UNICEF came and decided to take Ishmael out of the war and put him in a rehabilitation center. In this part of the novel, the reader can see how his desire for killing has controlled him completely. By fighting and killing rebel members in the rehabilitation center and beating up the guards to force them into doing what the children wants to do, the reader can see that the war has changed their ways of life and thoughts. The army was able to change Ishmael 's desires and from that, he became a deadly

Additional Activity 1 In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the reader can gather certain information about the story he told. The point of view of his story truly affects the reader’s understanding. Also, Beah included details that defined his experience and changed his life. He also wrote his memoir with an emotion that drove the story.