A Long Way Gone Analytical Essay

In terms of the events of my childhood, I can honestly say I had it pretty easy. I was never worried about the fundamental imperatives of surviving, but was more concerned with normal problems and challenges of a typical middle class American child. Like the majority of the youth of this country, my early the experiences of my early childhood were devoid of real danger and conflict. Given my upbringing as comparison, it was a largely eye opening experience reading and experiencing the harrowing account of adolescence described in vivid detail in Ishmael Beah’s 2007 memoir A Long Way Gone. The memoir is about how Beah himself was indoctrinated into becoming a child soldier during the decade long Sierra Leone Civil War. At the age of only twelve, Beah’s village is attacked by militants and he is forced to flee with a group of his closest friends. Having no concept of war before this period, Ishmael is thrown into the fire and forced to either adapt or die. The boys understand that they can no longer go back to live in their ransacked village, and thus begins Beah’s inhuman odyssey. Among …show more content…
Even though the village is under the control of the Sierra Leonean army, the villagers seem to experience a quality of normalcy and routine that has been all but erased from the mind of the young Ishmael. It is in moments like these included in the work that we see another truly terrible effect that war has on the lives of people, let alone children. One second you could be waist deep in burnt bodies, the next you could be playing soccer in relative safety and comfort. The young boy experiences an ebb and flow of emotional highs and extreme lows, more than would make many adults lose sanity. How Beah is eventually able to survive this uncertainty and hell remains a truly remarkable