In the novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah we can see two major aspects of shared humanity the first of which being loss, and the second, survival. Ishmael is a boy who lives in the town of Mogwebo. He and his friends started a rap group and decided to go to a talent show in Mattru Jong which was a town a few miles away. During this time a civil war was happening between the government and the rebels who sought to “free” the inhabitants by killing them all except for the boys who they would…
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…
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…
This shows that Ishmael is terrified of Barry and has no confidence in himself to stand up against Barry since he reckons he will get a further beating from him. Although he has a self-image of a dead fly, he has stated that he hasn’t he wasn’t always like this before. This shows that he used to be normal boy throughout his elementary school years and he had lowered his self-image due to the constant bullying in highschool and depression against his name, which he claims as ‘Ishmael Leseur’s…
undocumented use of national resources for personal satisfaction, Sierra Leone is constantly fought over for the resources she holds. Many lobbyist groups exist who seek to control and address the policies about the abundant resources present in Sierra Leone, consequently the country is constantly crippling from within. To understand the inner reality of the diamond industry in Sierra Leone, there is a need to take a look back in its history. Sierra Leone was colonized by the English, in which,…
Going Solo, Roald Dhal's memoir of his in east Africa and his service in the RAF (Royal Air Force), covers much of the builds up to World War II. In the book it mentions Tanzania. Tanzania plays an important part, since it was where he was sent to by the company that he worked for out East. Dahl tells about Tanzania that " The whole of that amazing tropical scene through the port- has photographed on my mind ever since" (p23). In fact, Tanzania is important because it is the start of his…
February 1993- Mattru Jong is attacked by the rebels. Late 1995- Ishmael and his friends are trained by the government soldiers. They are then sent into battle. Mid 1996- Ishmael and some of his friends are chosen to attend a rehabilitation center in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown. Early 1997- Ishmael is adopted by his uncle. He also gets nominated to speak at the UN Council in New York City. May 1997- Freetown is attacked by the rebels and the government soldiers. Ishmael decides to…
Memories have the to power to connect people to their past, which may be a distress for some. In A Long Way Gone, a recovering boy soldier named Ishmael Beah struggles to rehabilitate by overcoming his torn memories in order to remember his significant ones. Throughout this book, Ishmael has many flashbacks in the healing process that he eventually learns to cope with. One of the first flashbacks Ishmael has is when he revisits the time when he was a junior lieutenant. Weeks after being rescued…
underdeveloped 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…
Good Fortune is a documentary about Kenya, and two main projects to try to help their poverty problem. It follows two projects one being a government funded project to try to remove people from the slums to better homes. The second project is a private project by a man named Calvin Burgess who is investing 21 million dollars in a rice farm. The film puts these two projects under a microscope and tries to show why these two projects are not helping the people living in poverty. When you say…