Essay

I. INTRODUCTION
A Long Way Gone is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah.     Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone on November 23, 1980. His book "a long way gone: Memoirs of a boy solider" was written in 2007 and tells of his life as a child solider in the Sierra Leone civil war. It was the only book he has ever written and received very mixed reviews and criticism.   The elements will be read are Setting, Conflicts, Characters, Setting, Purpose, Relevant Quotations, and Point of View of the book.
II. PLOT
A memoir of a child soldier in Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, will take people on a journey through suffering and survival, an endless struggle against the seemingly impossible, a miraculous delivery.
In telling his story, Beah challenges the West’s glorified view of war and violence through the eyes of what was an innocent child. Through this lens, the reader can begin to both experience and understand the horrific acts of war and its lasting toll on humanity, ripping away the naturalness in the hearts and minds of young and old.
Beah’s story begins during the peak of the civil war, which quickly spread throughout Sierra Leone, overtaking villages and tribes, converting the society to a bloodbath. Beah was captured at the age of 13, recruited by the Sierra Leonean Government army and forced into combat against the “rebels” – the Revolutionary United Front that began the unsuccessful 11-year war in 1991. During a period of almost three years, Beah was forced to smoke marijuana and take “brown brown,” a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder. Through this, the Government Army SDT steals its stolen youth, brainwashing them and turning them into master killers.
You could say that Beah faced death on several levels. He lost his entire immediate family who were slain in the war, he witnesses the killing of some of his closest friends, and at only the age of 13 loses his innocence. He is plagued with a reoccurring nightmare of facing his own death, and then...