While writing a memoir, the author does not always have to be truthful. As long as the author gets their point across, then that’s fine. Most authors, in every genre, have some kind of false information they put in to try and make their book appeal to their targeted audience. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes they might have a small detail that's true, but it's either not worth telling, or it doesn’t add to the point of the story. In the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the author was talking about his experiences as a child soldier. By the end of the book, the author made us feel pitiful towards him. The tone of the story was serious and Ishmael wanted to make us feel pity for him. Adding a few dishonest statements doesn’t impact
A Long Way Gone is a novel written by Ishmael Beah. He’s a child who lost everything extremely valuable to him, due to war. Ishmael uses imagery, descriptive writing, and emotions to show the challenges it took to survive the war. As the war goes on, Ishmael describes the changes of how Mogbwemo, the village he was raised in, and his neighborhood, of how it went from peaceful to violence, and how the war had impact him and the people of Sierra Leone.
Michael Gow’s play Away is the story of three different Australian families who go on holiday for Christmas in the sixties. By going away each family is hoping to resolve their issues. Although Away is set some time ago the themes and issues explored in the play are still relevant to a modern day audience, even one of a non-Australian background. Shakespearean plays that were written many hundreds of years ago and are still understandable and relevant to people all over the world today.
Throughout the course of the book, A Long Way Home, Saroo Brierley, the author, encounters a series of traumatic experiences that lead to bittersweet moments. Unlike a normal child’s infancy, Saroo was physically and mentally consuming. Through his experience, we are able to get a glimpse of the many struggles and hardships young children live in India daily. His petrifying experiences of living on the streets, Liluah, and Nava Jeevan finally lead to his safe haven of being taken by the Brierley’s.
Ishmael Beah was a boy from Sierra Leone who became a soldier in the country`s tragic civil war. He spent nearly all his childhood running away from the war and eventually ended up joining the army. During difficult times, Ishmael always held on to hope to continue his life’s journey. In A Long Way Gone, the theme is “Always have hope”, and is shown through Ishmael Beah’s hope for a better life, to find his family, and through the rehab staff`s hope for the boy soldiers.
“Hope when you take that jump, you don’t fear the fall. Hope when the water rises, you built a wall.” An important message prevails in both A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (2013) and “I Lived” by OneRepublic (2007), taking risks without hesitation, being ready for all that comes. This song represents living life to the fullest, no matter situation, life goes on, never coming again. This would be an ideal song for someone in Ishmael’s obstructed position. “With every broken bone, I swear I lived.” “I Lived” by OneRepublic reassures people struggling to remember the gravity of living life to the fullest; reminding us to take chances and accept our legitimate identities, or a song of survival for people like Ishmael. People need to stop taking pity on themselves, there is always a bright side; life never forsakes us. Be strong and jubilant. No one lives forever, to truly
Michael Gow's play, "Away" expresses the idea of going through changes and receiving help from people around you. The key characters of the play experiences change and renewal as a result of their relationships with others ad the summer vacation. Coral and Gwen is two characters that undergo the most changes throughout the trip. Coral manage to moved on from her's son death while Gwen changed from a snobby person to a person who is more understandable. Tom is one of the critical character that help Coral and Gwen realised their issues and surpasses it. The play showed lives of people and their own struggle during the 60s and how they overcome it.
In the memoir, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, and the film The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, there is a lot to do with poverty, loss of family and independence. Only in different ways. Ishmael is on his own and has to find his own food, water and shelter along with a few friends. The boys are all young but were thrown into the real world very quickly and unexpectedly. Mister and Pete have their mothers, but it does not matter as of the mothers do not seem to care for their children as much as they should. Mister and Pete come home to rarely any food at all, no money and are scared of one day, no shelter. Mister has to take charge in his home as a result of his mother being a drug addict and does not try to help, just like Ishmael had to be his own person by reason of the believed loss of his family.
In the memoir of Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah states that his life’s journey has been a huge obstacle, but has learned to overcome that struggle by venting while the two contradictory sides continue their battling. Beah accomplishes his goal of explaining to the reader his point of view through the use of rhetorical questions, scenic narration, and parallelism. Ishmael Beah’s apparent purpose is to share personal accounts of his life with his fellow country men, in a country where war affects people to a level beyond the imagination. He is able to apply his purpose using a grotesque and bitter tone. Beah approaches his audience of ordinary people in this manner in order to vent his feelings about war by
In this essay I’m going to be discussing three themes from the novel A Long Way Gone By Ishmael Beah. The three themes I am going to be talking about are survival, family, and war. There are many themes in this novel, but I believe these are the three most important ones. I will explain each theme, give quotes from the book showing the theme and then explain how they are significant and show the theme.
Ishmael Beah fought a war that was very tense against the rebels which made everyone depressed. Ishmael the author of the book A Long Way Gone was fighting a war against the devilish rebels who change everything in his life. Beah does justify his actions because he wants to get back at the rebels for killing his family. They are justified since his family and friends were killed by the rebels, he basically was forced into becoming a child soldier to fight the rebels from destroying and killing and he witnessed his own village being destroyed.
Have you ever had that feeling of wanting to free yourself from something, breaking the wall that holds you back, cutting the string that won’t let you go on and be free? Emily Bronte in her poem “The Caged Bird” and “Sympathy” by Paul Dunbar portray their feelings in their lyric poems. Bronte was born in 1818 in Yorkshire, England. She lived during the end of the romantic period, which made a huge impact on her writings. Romanticism was “an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 1700s and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual 's expression of emotion and imagination…”
I do believe pure evil exists, some people were born to be evil. Most times it isn’t the evil persons fault, it is what they are used to and what they have been taught their whole life. In the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah pure evil does exist. The infamous rebels murder little kids and rape women and they don’t see anything wrong with it. It is their job. The rebels are taught to be evil people. “The rebels were still in my village, angrily cursing and shooting their guns. At some point they pretended to be gone, and someone escaped and went back to the village. They captured him and I could hear them beating him. A few minutes later, gunshots were heard, followed by thick smoke that rose toward the sky. The forest was lit up by the fire that was set in the village” (Beah 35).
In the late nineteenth century the European powers of the world began imperializing Africa. This annexation, occupation, and division of African territory has since led to much strife within the continent and has caused many struggles politically. This period known as the “Scramble for Africa” has led to the many problems that Africa faces today and has been the root of several wars in Africa to assume control. After World War II many European imperialists began to give African nations autonomy. This seemed like a step forward for African nations, but without any plan to transition into self governance many African nations have faced bloody civil wars and corruption. Along with political struggles, numerous African nations face rising debt and other economic problems. Many of these political and economic issues stem from the “Scramble for Africa”. Once the European countries left Africa had very little to support itself. To explain the issues left by imperialism the three African nations of Rwanda, South Africa, and Sierra Leone will be put under the scope.
If Oprah were to recognize my novel by placing it in her “Book of the Month Club”, the novel would contain a message about losing your ability to tell the truth. As children we are told to always be truthful, though adults may tell us white lies. Lies are told to protect yourself or someone else from the truth. Generally, we fear the outcome of our truthful statement. Rarely do we tell a lie that is not to protect ourselves or another; for example if you were throwing a surprise party you would lie about why you invited the guest of honor over. However, as an adult you are able to function without
Now that may seem obvious but think about how often we get information about someone or something that happened and the information is just not accurate. There maybe some level of truth contained in the account but often times people take the story and elalborate even add more details to make the story juicier. Morris Mandel has a great quote about the dangers of gossip. "Gossip is the most deadly microbe. It has neither legs nor wings. It is composed entirely of tales, and most of them have stings." Before you give that story wings take the time to make sure it is true.