Ishmael

to stay alive. Children do not kill out of desire, they kill because they are ordered to kill. These kids do not fully understand the implications and the causes their actions have. They simply follow orders made by their commanders. The case of Ishmael Beah, who was forced into being a child soldier, shows how giving him amnesty and putting him through rehabilitation can have positive results. Adolescents who have been sent to Guantanamo, like Omar Khadr, usually are not given the chance to…

enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people.” Ishmael says this after he is brushed off by a family he spotted in the water because they were scared he would harm them and suspected him of being a spy for the rebels. Ishmael then says “Even a twelve-year-old couldn’t be trusted anymore.” Circumstances such as the one told in the quote had happened several times throughout the book. As the war progressed, the concept of trust soon disappeared. Ishmael had encountered several more instances…

A stolen childhood The meaning of war in the dictionary is “A military conflict between two nations or parties”, but in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah war is not just a conflict between two nations or parties but it’s a conflict between death, revenge, and survival. Ishmael Beah is a victim of war that took place in Sierra Leone. His lieutenant easily turns him into a ruthless killing machine. The Lieutenant use a false promise to avenge the death of his…

Here, Melville works to defamiliarize his readers with the very concept of worship. Notably, Ishmael posits a series of questions, leading readers along by the hand to follow his reasoning in why he should partake in this particular service. His “particular Presbyterian form of worship” works to draw his readers away from something completely familiar—a religion influenced by the Old World—to question their own belief system by positing a new, much more open form of Christianity, which accepts…

Appalling acts of violence continue to be the key method for military leaders to gain prominence in society. This is especially effective against those with malleable minds, more specifically children. Specifically, in A Long Way Gone, author Ishmael Beah’s Lieutenant uses murder, abuse, and drugs in order to get Beah to depend on him. Unfortunately, the issue of child soldiers has lost significance in the world today, and because of this a new leader began to rise, Joseph Kony. Kony is the…

You can’t judge a man based on his past but by what he does in the future. Despite what some may think I believe we should allow Ishmael Beah to speak to us about child soldiers. I find the best way to comprehend an issue is through an expert, and the best way to realize the issue of child soldier is though Mr.Beah. He has endured first hand what it’s like to be a boy soldier and the steps to redeem himself for the consequences of war and revenge. Though his words Mr. Beah can create a concept…

a civilization system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live.” (25) In the novel, the author has portrayed the narrator and Ishmael as being held in captivity. When Ishmael discusses his background, he discusses the three ways that he was held captive: a zoo, a carnival, and a cage. When Ishmael is teaching the narrator, he touches base on the concept of humans being held captives by society. As I read the novel, I started to question my choices in life…

room colored blue like the ocean. When I was sitting up a girl walked through the door and yelled a word so vulgar that I dare not write it. “Who are the HELL are you?” she exclaimed as she twisted my arm around my back “Call me Ishmael” “I’ll call you a perv… Wait Ishmael like Moby Dick?” “ I suppose so. Moby Dick was a whale that myself and others-” “ Yeah I know the story, Everyone knows the story. Look i guess I’ll help you with…

After reading Ishmael, my mind was astounded by the depth of which the novel illustrated about humanity and its captivity. It gave me a new prospective of how in some ways I would be considered conformed to the world based of “Mother Culture” ideas. It made me feel guilty that despite everything I have done and learned in relation to the environment my humanistic values may be contradicting it. I had to take a step back couple of times reading the novel to correlate it with my own personal…

as lacking knowledge, gowth, and progress. Age cannot be a determining factor for whether or not maturity is present in one’s life because maturity can most definitely be achieved from experiences and encounters. In the memoir, A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah expereinced meny of his childhood years as a child soldier. Living the demoralizing and trapped lifestyle of a soldier has actually made some sort of a positive impact on his life by giving him the gift of maturity. Beah’s age did not play…