Sierra Leone

and overridden with rebels. Fraught with the evils of greed and violence, Sierra Leone continues to suffer from the blood diamonds being smuggled out every day. Greg Campbell, the author of Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s Most Precious Stones, proclaims “The discovery of those diamonds-- which, until then, had been deemed to be just another worthless piece of gravel by the locals-- placed Sierra Leone on a course that would effectively destroy the entire country by the…

literary work, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah uses symbols to underscore his central theme of oppression and/or freedom. First of all, he uses dreams to show the many challenges he faced throughout his life and journey through Sierra Leone. Secondly, Ishmael uses his cassettes to symbolize past memories throughout his childhood and the good times they brought. Last of all, Ishmael uses the moon/sky as a symbol of hope, wholeness, positivity, and freedom. Firstly,…

Ishmael Beah is a Sierra Leonean that was forced to become a soldier at a very young age. Growing up, the Rebels invaded Mogbwemo, his hometown, which caused him to be separated from his family. As a young child, he witnessed disaster take place before his eyes, day in and day out. There were rarely any moments in his life that did not cause him some form of psychological harm. Throughout the times of being a boy soldier, Ishmael was introduced to a lot of toxic things, drugs being one of the…

village. He then faces his village being taken by the rebels, he is now homeless and must try to survive, making him a refugee. After all that he went through escaping the rebels and other people who wanted to cause him harm, he was captured by the Sierra Leone Military. They taught him how to fight and turned him into a child soldier. As an innocent boy in Mogbwemo, he was going to school and striving to get an education. He never really understood the war, as he said in Chapter One, “There…

nine years old to when he is about fifteen years old. We see his struggles living life in a time where violence and death held a firm grip on Sierra Leone, and how he lost his entire childhood both running away from the war, and being a part of it as well. Before this novel, I had somewhat of a vague understanding of the civil war that had occurred in Sierra Leone. I watched certain movies that portrayed the Civil War in certain ways, such as Blood Diamonds. This book completely changed my view…

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is a narrative of survival of a 12-year-old boy separated from his family and caught in the mess of the Sierra Leone civil war in the early 1990s. His story reveals his traumatizing and shocking experiences as a soldier driven by anger and revenge for the loss of his village and his culture, only later able to overcome everything that had happened and the things he’d done. Ishmael’s cultural connection to storytelling was ultimately what…

Book Report The book A Long Way Gone by: Ishmael Beah is about himself and how he becomes a boy soldier during a war in Sierra Leone. Ishmael was a boy who performed in a rap group with his friends until Ishmael’s village was attacked by rebels. During all of the confusion and violence performed in the war, Ishmael Beah, his brother, and some of his friends walk to different villages to search for food and shelter. Although their struggle to get food for survival led them to attack young…

the horrors of the world and they are still pure in mind and spirit. As kids in America we were very lucky to be able to have our innocence for as long as we can. However, in countries like Sierra Leone they are not given a choice, they lose their innocence at a very young age. Children in Sierra Leone and other areas around the world can be as little as 5 and have seen someone they know get their head blown off. It is something that can really affect a young child’s development. These…

Summary: In this story Ishmael Beah, a 12-year-old, is living through hard times. The African Civil war is going on and he tries to escape the rebels and the military. Unwillingly, he joins the military at age 13 on the front lines with 7-years-olds. He killed so many people throughout his military years. The African government sucked all the innocence from him. For 3 years he fought in military and at age 16 was sent to a rehabilitation center by the UNICEF. He struggles to understand…

the third person from the person who experienced the Sierra Leone war first hand for himself, it was a very well written and captivating novel. One of the main reasons A Long Way Gone was so fascinating was due to the reason that this was Ishmael Beah’s life as a young boy and the way he tells it is very intriguing.…