A Long Way Gone Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Ishmael Beah’s childhood was sensationally different than his old accustomed ways. He not only experienced a unmerciful war, his family and friends perished. At only twelve years of age and going through this, Ishmael goes through serious trauma. In his own memoir A Long Way Gone, Ishmael explains what happened during his experiences in the war and he raises awareness to the topic of child soldiers. The book goes into great depth of how every factor, choice, and death shaped him into the person he is today. The choices forced upon Ishmael completely changed what he has ever known, making it hard to return to his previous life. He goes through a powerful change of identification as the war carries on and all of these changes …show more content…
Once his rehabilitation comes to an end, Ishmael's did not feel immune from the guilt that he felt from what he had done (Beah 165). During his time in the war, Ishmael was conscripted to kill or be killed. So, he killed without a second thought and did not think of the impact it would late have on his life. Consequently, Ishmael began to have harrowing night horrors. “[He] couldn’t face the nightmares [he] knew would come” as they reminded him of what he did and who he was. (Beah 160). The nightmares grew more and more effective on Ishmael; he would wake up in screams of terror in fear he was in the war once again. The war had not only changed who Ishmael was, but it kept Ishmael from ever rediscovering happiness. He still hesitated to let himself go, because he still believed in the fragility of happiness (Beah 173). Whenever Ishmael became happy or got his hopes up, it was brutally wrenched away from him. Whenever Ishmael killed, the destination of happiness grew farther and farther away. Thus making the figure of happiness perish. Every detail in Ishmael's experiences invariably changed who he was, until he completely lost