A Long Way Gone

As you know from my previous post I have taken an interest in Multi cultural memoirs, The next book on my " To Read List " was " A Long Way Gone " By Ishmael Beah. As the reader, I saw a young boy who had a bright future being altered into a killing machine. Ishmael is afraid of fighting and had nightmares about dying. In Chapter 2 he has a very graphic description of one of his nightmares. He is pushing a wheel barrel with a corpse inside. The body has been riddled with bullets. When he unwraps the body he is looking at himself.

In the book Ishmael lives in Sierra Leone when it is going through a civil war. I took this dream as foreshadowing of events that may become true. Either he would become a soldier, or he would be killed. Tension builds and Ishmael joins the army," I am tired of living in fear " joining the army was one of the biggest turning points in the story. Slowly, Ishmael became a monster, " Killing had become as easy as drinking water " While in the army Ishmael did things that in the past he would have viewed as unthinkable.