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“Dance to what we came to know as hip-hop” (6) … “In those days we wore baggy jeans, and underneath them we had soccer shorts and sweatpants for dancing” (7).

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In these first pages, Beah utilizes the relationship between the children’s attire and their hobbies. He shows the reader that their lives were care-free (at least relatively), as the kids spend more of their time and concern on western culture and learning English than any worries over war, and his nostalgic tone creates foreshadowing for the coming narrative, as it seems likely Beah will lose this childness as the story continues. Most of Beah’s readers will be from western (or westernized), stable countries, and as such can both sympathize with the culture and view how care-free lives can lead to war in the coming chapters. He had already spoken at U.N. meetings on this issue and was a reknown human rights activist by the time he wrote this memoir, so this book would go on to tell his story, along with provide a parrellel to human rights abuses happening in the early 2000’s, particularly any cases (of Human Rights abuses and child soldiery) in the West’s War on Terror.

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“When I was very little, my father used to say, “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (54).

Beah still believed these words when he wrote this book (admitted himself), and this outlook on life explains both how he managed to power through the civil war and his awestern world view to a western audience. Beah has lived in both Sierra Leone and the United States, so has a proper grasp on both cultures and world views. The flashback serves to emphasize this, showing that what Beah learned as a child stuck with him, and his nostalgic tone emphasizes Beah’s want to return to an age when his family was still alive, he was still learning, and when he was not scarred.

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“He was halted by another grenade that exploded, causing his remains and blood to sprinkle like rain on the nearby leaves and bushes. All of it happened too fast.” (25)

Beah compares the blood to rain in order to give his audience a sense of the terror of the attack. Since his mostly westernized audience in large part has nor will ever experience anything like this, giving them a benchmark furthers the imagery of the scene and provokes a sense of horror in the audience. At this time games such as Call of Duty, which glorify war — which is very common in western culture — were hitting the mainstream, and this glorification of war is what Beah is trying to fight, as he shows the true gruesomeness through the perspective of a child. His ending remark on how it was “too fast” sticks with the reader as it ends the paragraph, it reveals how everything that just happened was near instantaneous and thus implies that it was in no way a ‘special’ instance of brutality, simply war.

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“I did not know the name of the village that we were in and didn’t bother to ask, since I was busy trying to survive the everyday obstacles. We didn’t know the names of other towns and villages and how to get there. So hunger drove us back to Mattru Jong” (31).

Hunger acting as a near omnipotent being over the soldiers shows how neither the government cares about their soldiers nor how the soldiers care for the people in Sierra Leone. They simply forage from place to place, feeding off whatever they can find because they have no choice but to, and this draws a stark contrast with the lives of the western readers of this book, who likely have never had to contend with true hunger. The lack of action in this scene also gives a realistic depiction of war, war is not battle, war is hunger and the destruction of citizen’s lives. Beah utilizes a series of short stops and starts to emphasize his hunger and desperation, and his use of “did not” may mean that he has since learned and/or researched the area after the war.

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“left them there in the forest, which had taken on a life of its own, as if it had trapped the souls that had departed from the dead. The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer” (119).

The country itself seemed to lament at the horridness both sides committed during the war. As a predominantly non-militarized audience most would never have seen — let alone have ever been anywhere near — a battle, and thus Beah tries to get out as many details as possible. This personified forest, acting just as any reader would, emphasizes the helplessness the typically all-powerful nature has over the course of the war. Nothing would stop the violence and it is possible that just as the outside force of nature was helpless, so too were UN peackeepers and delegations who tried to halt the war (which raged for a gruelling 11 years). Also, as he looks back upon his life, Ishmael Beah — now removed from the conflict — mentions how the trees were praying for both sides, potentially meaning that neither side was morally justified.

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“if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament” (218).

Beah shares his belief at the end of the book to contrast his civillian life with his time in the military. He was an innocent child, yet through brainwashing and sheer desperation he became “the green snake” which knew of nothing but drugs and violence. The readers, a majority of whom are innocent, must take this as a warning that they too could find themself in a very similar situation, nobody is immune to propoganda — something Beah knows very well. Beah became the monkey as the war progressed, and now that he can look back upon his younger years he acknowledges this from a (near) third person perspective. He judges himself with the audience, who now know his full story (or at least what he wishes to tell).

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“One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end” (69).

Ishmael Beah mentions this as potential justification for why he joined the government’s forces. As a wanderer, and especially as a child, Beah would have grasped for any opportunity at security, and the army gave him one. The audience — most of whom have never been displaced — may not fully understand the dire circumstance of being unsure about future security. Over 2.5 Million people were displaced during the Sierra Leone civil war and thus Beah’s story is simply one of — literally — millions, and only this realization may allow the audience to truly fathom the scope of the conflict. Beah mentions the mental and emotional impact such insecurity — which obviously affects the body — has, especially for a child, to display that the trauma of the war never ceased after the first attack. This emotional appeal garners sympathy from the audience and keeps them reading.

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“Whenever I turned on the tap water, all I could see was blood gushing out. I would stare at it until it looked like water before drinking or taking a shower” (145).

Beah has now been removed from the war after his superiors let him go, yet he mentions this to show the reader that it still travels with him. He does not mention whether or not he still sees blood come out of tap water to this day, but the audience can only assume that he does (or at least would if not for the suppport he received from the United Nations/West). The audience may be unaware of the effects of PTSD on a person, especially a child, and Beah brings up his need to wait for the blood to subside before using any water as a way to show the detriment it can cause. This garners sympathy with the audience as Beah reveals that the war still haunts him (likely). His use of past tense could indicate that the PTSD no longer affects him, but it may just as well be simply a matter-of-fact that it did then, not the lack of PTSD now.

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“My squad was my family, my gun was my provider, and protector” (126).

The reason Beah joined the war, above even getting revenge for his family, was to find security. As a child travelling the countryside he had no idea where he would end up or when, and this shows why he joined the army. The government and the soldiers around him stepped in where his now-deceased family could not. The audience may not understand why Beah would suffer in such a way (excluding the constant drug use) and this is his justification. He needed an anchor. Child soldiers are most common in places where proper support networks are not put in place (such as Sierra Leone), and this pattern of dependency is shown in Beah’s life. As soon as he could achieve independence — given to him by the UN and the United States of Ameria — he did.

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“The moon disappeared and took the stars with it, making the sky weep. Its tears saved us from the red bullets” (98).

Beah attempts to show the reader his belief that nature saved him during the war. After such a traumatic (series of) event(s) a person is likely to latch on to anything, and in this case it was nature. Given he is writing for a western audience, where Humanism and Secularism reign supreme, this view offers a counter to the beliefs of most of his readers (which Beah would be exposed to after moving to America). The quick actions of the moon create a sense of mysticism that sticks with the reader.

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“Each time I lifted my feet, the veins in them tightened and I felt the sand particles digging into my bleeding soles” (61).

Beah mentions this to display to the reader the extent of pain which he had to endure during his childhood. As (likely) someone from a developed nation, the reader would never have to go through something as extreme as what Beah is describing, and this furthers the audiences sense of horror at the brutality of the war — the fact that even something so minor as this caused so much suffering. Beah utilizes a stop/start structure, with three seperate phases in his sentence to further emphasize the horridness.

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“We needed the violence to cheer us up after a whole day of boring travel and contemplation about why our superiors had let us go” (136).

Beah writes about this to reveal how centered their culture became around violence. The reader may only appreciate the flashy battles Beah describes, however those moments can cause an entire shift in a person’s psyche. Now that he has been living in the United States for the better part of a decade, Beah can look back and analyze himself and the culture that surrounded him at this time from a birds eye view, and share it more objectively with the reader. Such a long sentence creates a string of thought, with the audience being wrapped up into a seemingly obvious explanation for the children’s tendencies, and Beah’s matter of fact tone seem to support this supposition.

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“Shelia and Josia weren’t strong enough to raise their weapons” (112).

Beah adds this detail about his fellow soldiers being unable to lift their weapons to reinforce the image that these were children being sent off to war. As the book progresses the audience may loose some of that sense, and this refreshes the reader and keeps them on track. Ishmael also might want to note this detail as a reminder that he was not the youngest, and certainly not the weakest child to be sent off to war — a grim reality. The fact that two children out of the dozen or so mentioned in the book (thus far) relays a sense that this was not unusual, which is further emphasized by Beah’s matter-of-fact, curt tone

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“I thought about being thrown in the ocean, about how difficult it would be to know death was inevitable” (67).

At this point in the story juvenile Beah has no idea about the warrior fate that awaits him. This detail about his thoughts creates an ironic sense as the readers hold knowledge about Ishmael’s future, and the stark contrast of child versus child-soldier connects Beah to his audience. His readers do not — in large part — face death at all, let alone every day, and Beah’s to-be transition from an innocent — parrallel to the audience — into “the green snake” is the entire purpose of the novel. Beah eventually reverts back to civillian life, forever changed, and after this transition he wants to chronicle how he descended into war-fueled madness, and that includes noting his starting point.

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“We walked around all day, buying ice cream and Vimto drinks … I spent most of my time licking the sticky residue on my elbows” (147).

Now that he is in the city and safe, Beah finally has the chance to be a child. Ishmael likely included this to reveal a stark contrast between his military and civillian life, as the audience may be curious as to how he functions in such situations, even to this day. This leads to the realization that just as the children conduct themselves like kids in civillian life, they would have done the same in the military. Now that Beah has integrated back into society after so many years he can look back and see the dichotomy between civillian and military life. Even though he is still a soldier at this point, the uplifting section of Beah’s story has begun, and hope for a future has arrived.

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“I saw the red bullets flying through the forest” (35).

— See Personification 2 for another example —

This is the first instance of Beah describing enemy bullets as “red”, which is something that he continues to do throughout the story. Whilst they could actually look red, especially against the backdrop of a sunset/rise, they likely symbolize instances where Beah should have died. Since this repeats several times throughout the book it will lead the reader to understand just how unlikely Beah’s survival was during the civil war. Ishmael later revealed that he suffered from PTSD, mostly from blood — which is red — and thus it is possible these bullets have something to do with his disorder. Around this quote Beah utilizes short stops in his sentences to emphasize the action of the scene, indicating that the red bullets may have been a subconcious observation that only took its toll years later.

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“I loved the history of Ethiopia and the story of the meeting of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. I related to the long distance they traveled and their determination to reach their chosen destination. I wished that my journey had been as meaningful and as full of merrient as theirs” (164).

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Beah assumes that most readers — given they come from a western background — will be at least somewhat familiar with the king Solomon and his journeys. He then utilized this to display a route with which he grew as a person during his time at councilling. As the world becomes increasingly secular, comparing oneself to a biblical figure becomes less and less agregious — especially in the west where rationalism led to secularism — and so using an allusion such as this and comparing oneself to it is not offensive. Beah also wishes to display just how far he traveled — which is seen in his description of his feet a hundred pages ago — and his mentioning how his travels were sad and meaningless also shows his perspective on the war and his time as a child soldier. Despite the travels ultimately leading to his future, he sees that era of his life much the same way as his travels, an era that should be left behind and forgotten.

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“It was as if his hand had been holding his blood from flowing. It rushed out of him like water breaking banks” (98).

The simile allows the readers — who have likely never seen someone die, let alone the effects of a bullet wound on a person — to visualize the situation. Beah adds this death scene to show the reader the true brutality this war causes, and the unceremonious deaths it gives. When he is relieved in Mattru Jong Beah revealed he has PTSD related to blood, particularly in confusing water for blood, and it is very possible this moment is a factor — or the sole reason — why he suffers this way. This simile, which represents an extreme example of flow, also adds to the hopelessness of the situation, Gasemu will die and nobody can stop it.

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“ I still see those images I saw when I was six, and it pleases me to know that that part pof my childhood is still embedded in me” (17).

The war completely destroyed Ishmael Beah, from devastating his family to giving him PTSD, yet this personal note informs the reader — who may be unaware of how war affects someone — that some semblance of his former self still remains. Now that he has been removed from the war for the better part of a decade, he can appreciate the niceties that remain.

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“ I told myself I wouldn’t want to live in such an unpleasantly cold country, where I would always have to worry about my nose, ears, and face falling off” (196).

The audience knows Beah will eventually live in New York for several years (and eventually Los Angeles). Also, the fact that he starts complaining after he makes it out of such a deadly situation is a reversal of expectations, as the reader — especially someone who lives in a place similar to or in New York — would assume he would be simply thankful. Beah added this to show that he truly did not see anything extraordinary about his situation.