Many narratives have been written about people lasting wars. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier written by Ishmael Beah stands out from many literary pieces. merely because he narrates his ain harrowing experiences in graphic item without mannerism. The book is an steeping history of his ain personal experiences of the asperities and challenges of war in West Africa.
What makes the narrative rather traveling is the fact that it clearly narrated in descriptive item the impact of the war on child-soldiers like himself – including how the ferociousness of war transformed him and changed his life everlastingly. and how he someway managed to deliver himself in the terminal. Book Review of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier I.
In Ishmael Beah’s book. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. there were several cases demoing the brutal. sadistic side of immature Rebels or boy-soldiers who were snatched from their unworried being to confront grueling preparation and obey stringent regulations of ground forces forces. as a manner to last the civil war in Sierra Leone. West Africa. Ishmael Beah recounted. for illustration. a abhorrent incident when “The corporal gave the signal with a handgun shooting and I grabbed the man’s caput and slice his pharynx in one fluid motion” ( 2007. p. 125 ) .
Thrust into a new universe where people learned to turn out themselves in order to gain their support or survive. Beah mirrors countless other immature soldiers like him around the universe who have no other option but to face and digest the hazards of war. even if in the procedure they leave behind their wholesome. obedient character. In my experience. I have seen many immature soldiers go off to war in exchange for government’s fiscal support which they severely need for their households. merely to be hardened by merciless brushs in the battleground.
Another illustration demoing Beah’s transmutation from a soft male child into an unforgiving. barbarous soldier was when he narrated he and his war comrades’ intervention of captured rebel-attackers: “we tied them and stabbed their legs with bayonets… we kicked them to close them up” ( Beah. 2007. p. 151 ) . Having witnessed the dark side of warfare. which entailed the violent death of guiltless civilians and even babes. Beah’s sadistic behaviour may be said to hold been shaped by the harsh and despairing fortunes that ensnared him. II. It is downright true that “the war had destroyed the enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people” ( Beah. 2007. P.
48 ) as gleaned by Ishmael Beah. and this fact finds its manner in some other parts of the book. For illustration. Beah realized early on. while huddling for safety and trekking from small town to village. and besides subsequently on when he inadvertently became portion of the war’s panic run. that among the effects of taking portion in the civil war. “people stopped swearing each other. and every alien became an enemy” ( Beah. 2007. p. 37 ) . He farther noted the vacillation or uncertainty apparent even in people who knew boy-soldiers like him. and how they tended to measure or weigh how they would associate to or swear him ( Beah. 2007. P.
37 ) . As a male child hardly in is teens who would hold been eager to do and cultivate new familiarities. Beah similarly expressed during the early portion of the book the beastly character and sheer panic and force inflicted by immature people like him on other people held as prisoners. He wrote. for case. how a boy’s face bled when “a Rebel pushed him to fall in us by nailing him in the face with the butt of his gun” ( Beah. 2007. p. 34 ) . In ordinary fortunes. he may hold shown greater understanding. or better apprehended meeting these new people shleping into his life. had he encountered them in a less coarse mode.
The war intelligibly destroys the experience of meeting people. which can be good-humored under normal fortunes. When people are caught up in the inexorable worlds of fending for themselves to remain alive. digesting hurting. hungriness. and a languishing psyche. there is hardly clip for promoting societal interaction. except those cultivated with fellow war companions. III. The displacement in Ishmael Beah’s character took topographic point bit by bit. First he witnessed the atrociousnesss committed against fellow human existences. including civilians impotently caught in the violent deaths and onslaughts.
He and his friends similarly encountered the sheer panic non merely of being separated from their households but of near-brushes with decease. Last but non the least. he endured the physical asperities of running for safety and nutriment and sloging from one small town to another. while besides observing topographic points “where we had spent most of our hungriness days” ( Beah. 2007. p. 36 ) . Slowly but certainly. Ishmael Beah found himself altering stance. from an perceiver and victim of the barbarous worlds of war. to a culprit of force. when he realized one tinkle mattered while out in the field – endurance.
The realisation dawned on him when he figured that turn outing his worth to the forces that snagged him provided a step of security. As he expressed. “I stood at that place and felt particular keeping my gun and felt particular. because I was portion of something and I was non running from anyone anymore” ( Beah. 2007. p. 124 ) . As a immature soldier. Beah felt that from being reduced to nil. he had acquired something to keep on to. even if that meant slicing people’s pharynxs with his bare custodies ( Beah. 2007. p. 125 ) .
Beah and his comrades truly had no pick in switching from being mere perceivers and victims to perpertrators of force. because when war involves a icky type of political relations – either you take portion in the violent deaths and beastly force inflicted on the enemy. or perish and run into your ruin. Beah and his comrades were lucky because even if they had sustained major physical hurts compounded by emotional injury. they managed to remain alive. In kernel. they had small option to be enmeshed in the dark side of warfare. merely because in their head. it was how they would last. IV.
The comments staff members and professionals who aided Ishamel Beah in his journey to recovery and to recovering his humanity that the things that transpired were non his mistake and that he’ll get through it ( Beah. 2007. p. 151 ) is non readily accepted by Beah at the beginning. because the lesions of war were still fresh and the emotional cicatrixs have non healed. The ephemeral phase was shown by the mode with which he showed annoyance from simply hearing the voices of staff members in the rehabilitation centre where he was taken. He recounted how he “would plug the wall” ( Beah. 2007. p. 138 ) or make up one’s mind to interrupt Windowss ( Beah. 2007. P.
140 ) . which reflected how the war damaged him emotionally. Over clip. though. when the compassionate staff members and nurses offered sincere attention and friendly relationship. he showed religion that so. he will acquire better or mend and that all the atrocious things that occurred during the war were mostly non his mistake. He was merely thrust into it. V. Telling the narrative of being made to take by a monkey whose parent one will take to give. Ishmale Beah expressed. “I concluded to myself that If I were the huntsman. I would hit the monkey so it would no longer hold the opportunity to set other huntsmans in the same quandary ( 2007. P.
218 ) . The message reverberates throughout A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. as shown by the violent physical assaults and violent deaths. the sadistic inclinations of Rebel leaders or ground forces forces. and other unfortunate fortunes and “obligations” foisted by the war commanding officers on boy-soldiers like Beah. Though it would look from the narrative ( which he remembered a friend’s gramps relate ) that people were presented a pick. in truth. there are small or no options whatsoever for those ensnared by war.
There is no manner out. if one wants to last. but to give personal comfort and. in most instances. rules excessively. It can besides be gleaned from the narrative that African small town life may be closely knit. warm and nurturing particularly for immature folks. but so certain social forces and worlds may coerce people to break up ties and abandon the amenitiess of place. put on the line their lives in many ways. and venture into the unknown. War. with all its horrors. can swoop on a calm community and mercilessly cut down it to complete wreckage.
In add-on. while a civil war may be one type of war. there is another type of war waged by persons. and it is to happen themselves or do themselves whole once more. after being battered by fortunes beyond their control. as exemplified by Ishmael Beah. In his instance. whichever manner he turned. there were obstructions and challenges to be hurdled. and he had to take the hard way. prolong lesions. larn his lessons and come out of the full experience whole once more. Reference Beah. I. ( 2007 ) . A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. United Kingdom: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
