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By Ishmael Beah

Cortess Clarke

Julianna Santamaria

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"Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. He graduated from Oberlin Collage in 2004. He is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO) at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and many other NGO (non-governmental organization) panels on children affected by war. He is also the head of the Ishmael Beah Foundation, which is dedicated to helping former child soldiers reintegrate into society and improve their lives. His work has appeared in VespertinePress and LIT magazine. He lives in Brooklyn" (Beah 1).

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This book is about a young boy named Ishmael Beah which faced the horrors/ traumatizing experiences of war and it also shares his journey toward rehabilitation. This book matters because it emphasizes the effects of war on everyone ,but more specifically, how war impacts children.

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Point of View and Reader's Interpretation Perspective

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Point of View and Reader's Interpretation Perspective

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The story is told through 1st person point of view. This allows the story to be told as if someone was telling them from their mouth, causing them to listen and pay attention more keenly.

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Representation of the army recruiting young children to fight in the war

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In the Army:

He was in the army for two years where he dropped of most of the fear that he had. He eventually was able to kill without any remorse, he became addicted to marijuana

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War:

War is developed throughout this story because as the story progresses the war is shown to impact the whole country of Sierra Leone both physically and psychologically. For example, at the beginning of the story, Ishmael and the people of Mogbwemo believe that the war was far and that the horrors described by refugees would never reach them. However, as the story progresses, the war ends up reaching Mogbwemo, Mattru Jong and eventually catches up with Ishmael and his friends. As they continued to flee the rebels and encounter other people, it's shown that people struggle to trust one another, not knowing if they will spare or kill them as they all try to persevere through the inconveniences of the war.

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Uncle Tommy: He is known for taking Ishmael in after UNICEF found out that he was Ishmael's ONLY family member, and even though they hadn't met before, he is described as being a loving and caring person who took in Ishmael and aided in his recovery after the trauma in the war.

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Arriving at Benin home:

Where Ishmael stayed after UNICEF took him away from the army for rehabilitation. This was where he regained his humanity and where he got opportunities to share about what happened to him and set up programs to help other boy soldiers regain a more normal lifestyle.

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A pivotal moment would be Ishmael losing his family due to the rebels. In Chapter 11, Ishmael and his friends make their way to a village up north where they were told their family was waiting for them, but reach the village just after the rebels attacked and lit it on fire. Through this attack, he loses his family. This anger and loss is what pushed him to kill every rebel, when fighting for the army.

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Tetanus- a bacterial infection that causes painful muscle spasms which if left intreated can cause death.

*It is a Noun*

"He also said the salt water was good for healing the pain and preventing tetanus" (Beah 64).

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Ishmael's Village Gets Attacked-

Ishmael and his friends go to a talent show away from their town Mogbweno, and while they were away performing, their village gets attacked by the RUF. This breaks Ishmael's spirit, as he doesn't see his mother, father, or little brother again. This key event represents Ishmael's transition from being an innocent child to losing everything of comfort and becoming a refugee in his own country

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Akimbo- a position where a body part is bent outward at a sharp angle.

*It is a Verb*

"Jumah looked toward the forest with his hands behind his back, Moriba was holding his head, Kanei stared at the ground, Musa wrapped his hands around himself, Alhaji covered his eyes with his left hand, and I stood akimbo to stop my legs from shaking" (Beah 108).

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dilapidated- to be in a state of disrepair

*It is a Verb*

"The building was roofless except for the tarpaulin that covered the boxes of ammunition and guns stacked against the wall; and in the only common space, a huge television screen sat on top of a dilapidated drum" (Beah 109)

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Nurse Esther: She was a nurse at the Benin Home at the rehabilitation center in Freetown where Ishmael was taken after being rescued by UNICEF. Esther is described as being kind and nurturing to Ishmael, as she was the only person who would talk to him as the young person he was before the war. An example of this is found on page 160 of Esther telling Ishmael “None of what happened was your fault. You were just a little boy, and anytime you want to tell me anything, I am here to listen." (Beah, 160)

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Metaphor- “Bullet shells covered the ground like mango leaves in the morning.” (Beah 93)

This sentence paints a picture for the reader to comprehend just how extreme and overwhelming the scene is and just how intense the moment was after the gunfire

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Similie- When a soldier was mocking a boy who was terrified of the situation he said "He is scared like a soaked monkey" (Beah 45)

This sentence comparing a scared boy to a 'soaked monkey', reveals the cruelness of the soldier and the pureness of the boy's fear.

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In 1991, the Revolutionary United Front or the RUF had engaged in a rebellion against the government which had resulted in many children being drafted into the military and used as child soldiers same as what happened to Ishmael. The conflict was deeply rooted into the trouble of political corruption and control over valuables such as diamond/gold mines.

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Personification- "The trees danced in the wind." (Beah, 10)

This sentence adds a human characteristic to an inanimate object in order to create tension and add a natural touch to the background.

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The use of child soldiers in the past in Africa, including Sierra Leone, Uganda, Liberia, also the the Democratic Republic of Congo

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In the book Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, many children would be subjected to political violence and many would be abducted from their families and reduced to combatting with drug addiction and trauma from the narcotics that were given to them during the war in order to desensitize them to the violence. The memoir by Ishmael brings awareness to the struggles that the children went through and the human rights that were violated during that time.

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Forced Into Being A Child Soldier-

Ishmael wanders with other boys after the attack in his village, and he ended up on a military base in Yele, where soldiers gave him hope by feeding him and offering him shelter, but then enlisting them to fight the rebels at an early age, being forced and subjected to drug abuse (brown brown, a mix of cocaine and gunpowder), emotional manipulation, and a loss of identity. This gives Ishmael extreme trauma and contributes to the loss of his sense of self.

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Being Rescued and Aided By UNICEF-

Ishmael gets rescued by UNICEF workers and gets taken to a rehabilitation center in Freetown, and he struggles at first, being violent towards others, coping with drug withdrawal, and being untrusting and unsure of his environment, but over time, he returns back to a healthy state and begins to heal and reclaim what he lost.

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Imagery- “We fought all day in the rain. The forest was wet and the rain washed the blood off the leaves as if cleansing the surface of the forest, but the dead bodies remained under the bushes and the blood that poured out of the bodies stayed on top of the soaked soil, as if the soil had refused to absorb any more blood for that day.” (Beah, 150)

This sentence provides the reader a visual of the grotesque reality of the war that boys like Ishmael went through.

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The Death of Ishmael's Uncle and Departure of Sierra Leone-

When Ishmael had escaped the horrors and trauma of the war, he went to go live with his uncle, Tommy. He was the only family left of Ishmael, and he was his only safe haven/comfort that he had ever since the war began, so after his uncle was killed by the rebels, it reminded Ishmael that nowhere is safe and that he had to flee Sierra Leone again because comfort wasn't going to be found anywhere else.