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“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Beah Essay

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‘A Long Way Gone’ is an accurate retelling of an adventure of Ishmael Beah, who had turned into a compelled boy serving in the military during a civil war in Sierra Leone. Throughout the book, several themes could be observed, the idea of the father. The theme of the father shows that a father cannot always protect his son, even though he might want to. The theme of the father is firmly connected to the central theme of war in the book: the young boy, the main character of this true story, treasures his family more than anything in the world. For this reason, he throws his every effort towards preventing his family from getting hurt any way he can.

His father once said: “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die” (Beah 54). Ishmael remembers this quote for the rest of his life, and it appears to be enough for him to struggle with himself towards yet another day.

The boy was only a little over twelve years old when his native village was ambushed while he was far from home with a gang of friends. When Ismael and his friends were staying at the house of Khalil, the member of the group, he had told them that the opposition had ambushed their native village Mogbwemo. Moreover, Khalil had reported that the representatives of the radical opposition were moving from village to village and forcing the civilians to leave their homes.

The civilians of the affected communities were moving away from the war zone to the small native town of Ishmael; however, nine of the new arrivals had any knowledge of the family of the main hero of the story. The new arrivals from the villages that are situated nearby had told Ishmael that the ambush of the opposition was very unexpected and hasty; as a result, there was utter confusion and every civilian had to move fast in separate directions to rescue themselves. That was the moment when the main hero of the book along with his friends had decided against returning to their native small towns and making an effort to find their loved ones.

The boys had started to retrace their strides; furthermore, they had come across numerous vestiges of the ambush, for example, large groups of civilians that were running away; men and women that tried to remain unseen behind the trees and to find their lost children; various vehicles that were stacked with the bodies of those who could not get out of the attacked area, and other horrors. With time, the boys began to understand that their path back to their native village was blocked, and their destination was unreachable.

As a consequence, Ishmael and his friends were forced to go back and devote their spare time to expecting any message from their parents of other loved ones. “He waited a few minutes, but the three of us didn’t say anything. He continued. Every time people come to us intending to kill us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die, and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you. It will be quieter than I am” (Beah 71)

With each page, the reader is increasingly sinking into the abyss of bewilderment, intensity, ambiguity, and unpredictability of the war. After the war has fallen on the homeland of the boy, Ishmael along with his brother and friends amble around suburbs, seeking to find something to eat and a roof to sleep under. The reality of these young boys is day-to-day combat towards extant; moreover, the young men discover the dark side of their nature, as they are perpetrating infractions they would never do in the time of peace, such as taking food from kids. With time, Ishmael was forced to become a soldier; as a result, he evolved into the single thing he was dreaded of – a murder machine.

Soon the boy began considering the army as his family; he gained an addiction to various drugs and believed that his family could be vindicated by the countless deaths of the soldiers of opposition. The killing spree continues until the boy is delivered to UNICEF, where he attended a rehabilitation center. Ishmael was constantly dealing with the horrors of his past and the uncertainty of his future, when he found the new hope and light in his life – a nurse Esther.

Furthermore, his extended family in Freetown greeted him warmly and gave him the love he needed. Later Ishmael was invited to New York to tell his story at the UN conference, where he finds his eventual step-mom, Laura Simms. After the boy had come back to Sierra Leone, the military force deposed the existed authorities, and the war became real to the boy again. Shortly after the death of his last family member, the boy abandoned Sierra Leone forever and came a long way to the United States to find a new home.

The book is chronologically divided into two main parts. The first one is the life of Ishmael before he decided to join the army; it is also the part that described his journey in endless efforts to find his family. The second part depicts entering the warpath by the author and his long rehabilitation, which has resulted in a positive outcome for a damaged boy.

The memory of his loving family, as well as the desperate support of his father and his will to help his son even despite the circumstances that do not allow him to do so allowed Ishmael to rehabilitate from the horrors of the war. Rehabilitation for many people appears to be long and difficult. Even though the rehabilitation was protracted and challenging, it became possible by the virtue of the undying love for the closest people in the entire world.

The rehabilitation began at the moment where the boy had realized that revenge will not bring peace to his soul: “I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I’ve come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end…” (Beah 112).

Works Cited

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, New York, New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2008. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2020, August 16). "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Beah. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-long-way-gone-memoirs-of-a-boy-soldier-by-beah/

""A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Beah." IvyPanda , 16 Aug. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/a-long-way-gone-memoirs-of-a-boy-soldier-by-beah/.

IvyPanda . (2020) '"A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Beah'. 16 August.

IvyPanda . 2020. ""A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Beah." August 16, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-long-way-gone-memoirs-of-a-boy-soldier-by-beah/.

1. IvyPanda . ""A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Beah." August 16, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-long-way-gone-memoirs-of-a-boy-soldier-by-beah/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Beah." August 16, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-long-way-gone-memoirs-of-a-boy-soldier-by-beah/.

A Long Way Gone

Ishmael beah, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Ishmael Beah is a twelve year old boy living an innocent life in the eastern part of Sierra Leone in 1993. Beah’s mother and father are divorced, but he occupies himself with rap music and dancing. A civil war is raging elsewhere in Sierra Leone, but the fighting has not touched Beah’s life and he can’t believe it ever will. When the memoir begins he is on his way from his hometown of Mogbwemo to the town of Mattru Jong, a sixteen mile trip, to participate in a talent show with his friends Junior and Talloi . But while he is there, his hometown is attacked by the rebels, and Beah’s family are not among the stream of refugees that come through Mattru Jong.

After a little more than a week, Mattru Jong is attacked by the rebels, and Beah flees with Junior, Talloi, and friends from Mattru Jong, including Kaloko , Gibrilla and Khalilou , into the forest, only to return to Mattru Jong out of hunger and desperation. Their efforts are fruitless, however, and the boys wander aimlessly in the surrounding countryside, unable to cope or even talk about what they have seen, stealing food to get by. They are often mistaken for rebels and are chased, and in one case, even captured. It is only Beah’s cassette of rap music that saves them, because when the villagers play it, they see they must be dealing with innocent boys. Eventually the boys get word of a village, Kamator, where Gibrilla’s aunt lives, and they go there to help out in return for food and shelter. The village is initially vigilant about watching out for rebel attacks, but that vigilance wanes, and after a little more than four months, they too are attacked.

Beah loses track of his brother and friends in the chaos, and hides out in the forest with Kaloko, hoping for some sign that his friends have survived. When there is none, Beah decides to get as far away from the war as possible, and leaves Kaloko behind. He promptly gets lost in the forest and wanders for a month hopelessly before coming upon a new group of boys, Alhaji , Saidu , Kanei , Jumah , Musa and Moriba . The boys head for the ocean, having heard of a town called Yele which is safe, but along the way are captured by villagers who mistake them for rebels. Beah’s cassette again comes to the rescue.

The boys strike out again without much sense of purpose, but despite their sadness and their loss, are often buoyed by the kindness of people they encounter. Their friend Saidu dies mysteriously after the boys eat a crow that has fallen from the sky, but soon after Beah runs into an old acquaintance named Gasemu who tells him that Beah’s family is in a nearby village. Gasemu leads them there, only to find that just as they are arriving, the village is being attacked. The boys rush in to find everyone dead and the village on fire. They are attacked by rebels who are returning to the village and flee, and as they do, Gasemu is shot and eventually dies of his wounds.

The boys are picked up by government soldiers soon afterwards and brought to Yele, where they think they have discovered some peace. But the village’s large population of orphans is enlisted to fight for the army, despite the fact that some of them, like Sheku and Josiah , are so small that they can’t pick up their guns. In their first battle Musa and Josiah are killed, but in the space of that battle, Beah becomes a killer. The boys are urged by their commanders to take revenge on the rebels for the deaths of their families and are given a steady supply of drugs to keep them distanced from the present. The boys make play of war, watching Rambo movies and trying to replicate the moves.

After two years as a child soldier, Beah is taken from the front to Freetown, much to his brainwashed anger. Efforts to rehabilitate him and other boy soldiers are at first met with extreme violence from the boys. UNICEF even makes the critical mistake of putting rebel boys and army boys in the same compound at first, and in the ensuing battle, several boys are killed. But by showing affection and appealing to the boys’ interests, like Beah’s love for rap music, the staff, like the nurse Esther , begin to help the boys cope with some of their trauma. After 7 months, Beah moves in his uncle , who lives in the capital city of Freetown, and even goes to New York City to speak at the United Nations on the behalf of child soldiers in Sierra Leone. There he meets Laura Simms , who leads a workshop to help the children tell their stories. She often sends him money when he is back home .

But Sierra Leone has not been rehabilitated, even if Beah has, and there is a violent overthrow of the government. Freetown becomes unsafe, as violent, in fact, as the front once was, and when Beah’s uncle dies because he cannot get a doctor, Beah decides to flee to the nearby country of Guinea and from there to the United States, having talked to Laura Simms, who has promised that she has a place for him to stay in New York.

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Essay Samples on A Long Way Gone

The powers of revenge and forgiveness.

The novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, is a memoir about himself, sharing his harrowing experience as a child growing up and his struggle for survival in Sierra Leone. The unthinkable happened in his village, Mattru Jong. The civil war occurred out of...

• A Long Way Gone

Book Review "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah

 The novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, is a memoir about himself, sharing his harrowing experience as a child growing up and his struggle for survival in Sierra Leone. The unthinkable happened in his village, Mattru Jong. The civil war occurred out of...

The Horrifying Reality of War in Ishmael Beah's Novel A Long Way Gone

“A Long Way Gone” written by author Ishmael Beah is a book about a young boy named Ishmael who went through a lot of early teenage trauma because of a war that was happening in his home country. The author wrote this book about his...

Sierra Leone's Robbed Childhood in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

The war deprives kids of childhood, distorts humanity, and brings despair and fear. People living in a peaceful world can never feel the same about the reality and cruelty of wars. This book tells the reader about the actual miserable situation of Sierra Leone during...

Uncovering The True Fiction Behind Ishmael Beah’s Recount of His Life Story

What settles the difference between nonfiction and fiction? The specifics. In a nonfiction novel, the author is recounting on purely true events. However, in a fictional text, the author has a wide range of possibilities and can be very subjective. The specifics can be used...

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The Life Lessons in "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah

“The book is raw, run through with melancholy, but so honest and longing that hundred and thousands have read it, and it’s made Beah…arguably the most read African writer in contemporary literature,” said Dave Eggers (Vanity Fair). A Long Way Gone is a story of...

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2. Book Review “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah

3. The Horrifying Reality of War in Ishmael Beah’s Novel A Long Way Gone

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6. The Life Lessons in “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Long Way Gone — Critical Analysis Of A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah

Critical Analysis of a Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

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A Long Way Gone

by Ishmael Beah

A long way gone themes.

From the moment he fled the violence at Mattru Jong, the focus of Beah's life became surviving day to day. He learns quickly that in order to survive, he must suppress his true emotions. After the RUF attacks Mattru Jong, Beah lets go of his prior attachments to family and friends, joining up with boys who, like him, are on the run. Even though he welcomes the company, he remains emotionally distant from his newfound friends. When they die or become separated from one another, Beah does not have time to mourn. His goal is to live through one more day, and he can't afford to stop and think about the atrocities around him.

For months, Beah stays alive by overcoming hunger, violence and isolation. When Beah becomes a soldier, he is trained to tap into his rage in order to kill rebels. The officers manipulate the boys into thinking they are exacting revenge on the people who killed their families. Beah acknowledges it is unlikely that he and his fellow soldiers confront those actually responsible for their families' deaths, but the temptation to believe is strong. They accept this as reality - fueled by drugs and violent films - and operate on the assumption that they kill or be killed.

When Beah arrives at Benin Home, he finds it hard to access his true feelings about the loss and the violence he has experienced. After years of subverting his emotions, he is unable or unwilling to speak about what happened because Beah long gave up hope for a real life. Only through therapy is he able to trust others begin to tell his story. Cutting off his emotions kept him alive, but examining those feelings after the war gave him a new life.

Beah weaves memories of his life before the war into his recounting of months on the run from the RUF. In distressing times, Beah calls up happier moments in order to get through another day. Memories of his family - especially those of times before his parents divorced - allow him to keep a glimmer of hope alive in the darkness. His memories of his grandfather help in a more direct way; Beah uses legends and advice from his childhood while alone in the forest. Memory is an aid. When he becomes a soldier, however, Beah no longer indulges in memories of his childhood. After he kills his first man, the memories become a burden as he believes his life will never be the same. When he is rescued by UNICEF, he still resists remembering his family because he is afraid he will have to first reexamine his war years in order to access memories from before. But, Beah uses flashbacks later in the book as he allows his memories to return while he is in rehabilitation. For Beah, memory is the key to survival at the start of the war, then blotted out as a coping mechanism when he is forced to do inhuman things, and a signifier of healing later on.

Loss of Innocence

Obviously, since Beah became a child soldier, his tale would incorporate the resulting loss of innocence. The violence and terror is rendered through the eyes of a child and Beah writes plainly and without judgment about his experiences. Though the attacks on his village and subsequent villages he seeks haven in sever Beah from normal childhood activities, he at first maintains his innocence. He holds onto childhood memories and is able to fleetingly rekindle his sense of wonder; for example, he and his companions rejoice when they first see the ocean.

Although the violent pursuit of rebels across Sierra Leone traumatized Beah, it is not until he is turned into a killer that he truly loses his innocence. To emphasize this change narratively, Beah stops utilizing flashbacks to his childhood in the memoir after he is indoctrinated into the army, citing his inability to remember anything good. Beah details the manipulative tactics used by the commanding officers to create killers, which have the cumulative effect of eradicating childlike emotions or actions. Beah's experiences in the war strip him of his humanity but the relief efforts help restore the dreams he had forsaken when he was 12.

Even amid the horrors of civil war, Beah can see a grander perspective when confronted by natural beauty. Beah strives to be like the moon, he is adept at living off of the forest when he is stranded, and he rejoices when he sees the ocean for the first time. In nature, Beah retains his innocence. In his memoir, nature also echoes or foreshadows coming evil. Left alone in Mattru Jong after most of the villagers fled to the forest, Beah notes that the moon does not appear in the sky that night and that the air felt "stiff, as if nature itself was afraid of what was happening." (p. 22) When Beah is traveling with Kanei , Musa , Alhaji , Saidu , Jumah and Moriba , a crow falls out of the sky and the boys, desperately hungry, eat it despite their ominous feelings. The next day, Saidu falls ill and dies shortly thereafter.

For Beah, there's a deeper spirit to nature, one that resists the manmade atrocity. As a soldier, when it rains, he notes that the forest is washed clean, "as if the soil had refused to absorb anymore blood for that day." (p. 150) When his rehabilitation starts to take hold, Beah considers the moon for the first time since the war. For the past several years leading up to this moment, Beah has been divorced from the redemptive power of nature. He has been trained to fight, to kill, and to survive. Now, having broken through his own barriers against trusting nurse Esther and the UNICEF worker Leslie , Beah recovers his sense of family history. He invokes the memory of his grandmother and her lesson about man's communion with the natural world. For the first time since he was inducted into the army, Beah remembers this connection and seeks to make himself whole again.

Life and Hope

Hope comes in the starkest terms for Beah during his ordeal. When on the run from the RUF, Beah is able to comfort himself with memories of his earlier life. His father's saying, "If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die" is enough to push him towards another day. (p. 54) Being alive one more day is proof that all is not yet lost.

When he is a soldier, however, Beah forfeits a connection to his life. Hope dims in the haze of drugs and violence. Beah gives up any dream of a future beyond simply surviving. However, his father's adage rings true once rehabilitation begins. After speaking at the UN, Beah's hope is rekindled. He meets many children like him and sees that his experiences can have an impact on the world. For once, he realizes that someone will care if he lives or dies. Far away from the civil war, Beah's life has meaning again. In New York, also meets storyteller Laura Simms who offers him a lifeline out of Sierra Leone - which he eventually takes.

The Damages of War

Beah's memoir sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism. The anguish of losing his family and friends is compounded by the uncertainty each day brings. Although they attempt to find a safe haven from the war, the boys know from bitter experience that no such place seems to exist in Sierra Leone. Each new village brings either hopelessness - in the form of desolation and isolation - or hostility on the part of the frightened inhabitants. Beah feels that there is no place for him to call "home" any longer, and fears that such a place may never exist in his future. Whatever dreams or goals he had set no longer seem possible.

As a soldier, the fear subsides and he is forced to tap into rage and vengeance in order to survive. The constant violent acts Beah is subjected, as well as the drugs he becomes addicted to, tamp down his fear - but also his humanity. The war also breaks down civilization. Beah notes that before the war, kids his age would never raise their voice against adults. But the rebels and soldiers respect no one. Because of this, when Beah travels in packs of other lost boys, they are assumed to be devils. The civil war leads to chaos and mistrust on both personal and community levels.

Beah loses his mother, father, brothers and grandparents in the war. Family is the most important thing for Beah, and he struggles to keep his family alive any way he can. At first, he is stranded along with his brother Junior in Mattru Jong. Their bond deepens despite the tragedy that has befallen them. Ishmael and Junior try to protect each other as best they can, as they had when they were "misfits" at school. However, when they become separated, Beah is unable to mourn for him as he must focus on staying alive.

Each pack of boys Beah ends up with during his travels becomes an ad hoc family; family becomes situational rather than genetic. But each boy realizes that something irreplaceable has been lost. When Saidu dies, Kanei must represent his family at the funeral. The villager who accompanies them say that they will always know where their friend is buried and can return; but each boy knows they will never return. Later, Beah's squad becomes his family. Even at Benin Home, the ex-RUF boys clash with the rescued army boys. Likely orphaned, each boy desperately clings to one another. Family is something to fight for.

At Benin Home, Esther offers to be Beah's sister but he can only grant her familial status on a temporary basis. He has been jaded by war, but he still seeks connection. Beah eventually finds a home with Uncle Tommy - who, like Beah during the war, takes care of children other than his own despite not being blood - but he is wary of opening up about his wartime experiences. Beah does not want to alienate his cousins. Beah has learned that family is precious but can be fleeting.

The memories and stories of Beah's childhood are interspersed throughout the memoir, typically at times when Beah is most afraid. Within the story, they are a comfort to child Beah, but they also serve a greater, narrative purpose. With Esther, Beah bemoans the fact that as sole survivor, no one else will be able to tell stories of his childhood. His memoir is a way to keep his family alive in some way.

A Long Way Gone Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for A Long Way Gone is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Ishmael Beah takes a matter-of-fact tone in his memoir. Although he is recounting great horrors experienced by his twelve-year-old self, he does not dwell on lurid details or seem to exaggerate for dramatic effect. He states plainly what he sees...

GradeSaver has a complete study guide for this unit, which includes a short-summary of the novel.

How did Kanei become a refugee

He escaped with both mother and father, lost two sisters and brothers in chaos. They arrived at the river and got on a boat but the rebels shot at the boat so he swam.

Study Guide for A Long Way Gone

A Long Way Gone study guide contains a biography of Ishmael Beah, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About A Long Way Gone
• A Long Way Gone Summary
• Character List

Essays for A Long Way Gone

A Long Way Gone essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.

• Thematic Analysis of A Long Way Gone and Sold
• The Inhumanity of War and the Loss of Innocence in 'A Long Way Gone'
• The Impact of Revenge in War as Displayed in “A Long Way Gone”

Lesson Plan for A Long Way Gone

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to A Long Way Gone
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• A Long Way Gone Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for A Long Way Gone

• Introduction
• Main character list
• Plot summary

A Long Way Gone

86 pages • 2 hours read

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 4

Chapters 5-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-17

Chapters 18-21

Key Figures

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Consider Ishmael’s maturity level at this age. While he has certain predictable interests, such as rap music, he also possesses a clarity of vision and a sense of autonomy that enables him to survive these circumstances. Using examples from the text, explain what caused Ishmael to mature so early. 

What happens to normal standards of behavior during times of crisis such as war? Why is there a change in what is considered socially acceptable? What do you think causes the sort of sadism exhibited by the rebels and, later, Ishmael himself?

Dreams and nightmares are referenced repeatedly throughout this memoir . The author is traumatized by dreams of violence and dead bodies; he awakens having fallen to the floor during such a nightmare even after his relocation to New York City. What psychological mechanism do you think may be at work here? Do dreams serve a cathartic purpose? Why does Ishmael continue to suffer from terrifying dreams long after his military experience is over?

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