A long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (Summer Reading)

In the book A long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, two of the central themes/ideas that correlate are the importance of forgiving oneself and the negativity/ ineffectiveness of revenge. The book talks a lot about how Ishmael was mad at himself during rehab for killing so many people. Also the book showed that one cant move on until he/she forgives themselves. One supporting quote for this is

“‘None of this is your fault,’ she would always say sternly at the end of every conversation. Even though I heard that phrase from every staff member- frankly I had always hated it –I began that day to believe it. It was the genuine tone in Esther’s voice that made the phrase finally begin to sink into my mind and heart. That didn’t make me immune to the guilt I felt for what I had done. Nonetheless it lightened up my burdensome memories and gave me strength to think about things.”(Beah 165)

From this we can understand that is that while he was angry at himself he couldn't accomplish much but after that day when he absolved himself he to the strength back to think again.

Also the book talks about how he got so interested in killing people in the name of revenge, but close to the end of the book he realized that if he kills one man his family will come and fight to causing more people to fight in the name revenge, but that will get them nowhere. This is because more and more people will join the fight. A supporting quote is

“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 will never come to an end…”(Beah 199)

This quote shows us how the negativity/ ineffectiveness of revenge is a central idea developed in the book. We can conclude that Ishmael was fighting to avenge the deaths of his close ones but inadvertently turned himself into a mass murderer.

These were two important ideas throughout the book. READ IT!!




A Long Way Gone Article

This article talks about the struggles that child soldiers go through in Africa and why African wars are devastating. Then they give the example of this book an how it really helps paint a vivid description of the struggles they go through. Then the article goes on and talks about Ishmael and how he was able to escape war.