The novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah have many different symbols placed throughout the book. The 3 main ones I found were his rap cassette, his shoes, and the moon. The rap cassette is a huge part of the novel. The cassette represents his childhood and playfulness as his keeps it in his pocket even though he doesn’t have a tape player with him until he becomes a soldier. Later on in the novel we see when Beah joins the army, the cassette is burned by the soldiers, and with it goes his childhood. This scene relates to the central theme of freedom and oppression because when he lost his cassette and lost his childhood he also lost his freedom. He was no longer able to run around playing soccer as a young boy, he was forced to do work. Next,
