Changed

Ishmael Beah’s book A Long Way Gone tells his life changing story of becoming a boy soldier and then being relieved of this heavy adult task. At the beginning of the book he is not attending school because his mother cannot afford it and spends his time doing talent show with his friends. He does not have any exclusive plans for his future or education. When the war starts and he is separated from his family his agenda is simple survive and find his family. However with his dreams of being reunites with his loved ones shattered, he joins the army to fight against the rebels. At first he is squeamish around his gun and gore and cannot bear to shoot kids his own age, “I lay there with my gun pointed at in front of me unable to shoot” (p117). Soon he becomes accustomed to the military lifestyle of drugs and violence. Ishmael decides he will fight with them till the end. He’s greatest dreams consist of finding better guns and killing strangers to survive. Then as he becomes content in his place his gun is taken away and he is sent to a refuge home for other boy soldiers. After Ishmael discovers the other boys fought on the rebels’ side a bloody and vital fight breaks out and the boys are transferred to the Benin home.
At the home he is put into rehab and slowly his reliance on drugs withers away and his thirst for violence fades. Instead he wishes for a companion to talk about his past with. He begins to wish that the nurse at the home was a girl from his village that he knew while attending school. His heart broken by the loss of his family and everyone he knew before. He cries out “I feel as if there is nothing left for me to be alive for” (p 167). While Ishmael is at the brink of depression and despair, there is soon a change in him shown through his writing. While he is tells about his journey to New York for the conference he makes reference not always to his dark and grim past but to his future. He tells us that his friend Laura later offers him another winter coat but he refuses it because it is a female coat and at the end of chapter 20 Ishmael reveals that he later lives with Laura in New York. During his trip to New York Ishmael realizes that even though he had a horrible past there still is a future for him and he begins to be more optimistic.