Long Way Gone Themes

Innocence is something that everyone reminisces about and remembers fondly, but what happens when someone’s whole life gets put in dire circumstances beyond their control? That innocence once held rapidly diminishes to the point where it is not relevant and there is only one thing relevant, survival. This idea is present in the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. In this memoir, Beah recalls his story as a young kid thrown into chaos, as he is separated from his family, his friends, and is eventually forced to join the army as a boy soldier . Eventually, he is taken out of the war and becomes a functioning member of society but his innocence is shattered into pieces. It is evident throughout A Long Way Gone, mainly through Beah’s use of
His use of the motifs of loss and survival especially help convey the theme. At various times throughout A Long Way Gone, Ishmael loses the people that matter most to him. He loses his parents when their village is attacked, his brother and friends due to the chaos of the war, he loses his second group of friends when he becomes a soldier, and countless other times he loses something that matters to him.The quote “I went behind the house and punched the mango tree until Mohamed took me away from it. I was always losing everything that meant something to me.” perfectly exemplifies this motif shortly before the end of the book. He loses these important pieces of his life, all due to the war. Prior to the war, he was naive to being alone, and not having someone with him, as such, the motif of loss conveys that he has lost innocence with his many other losses. Also present throughout the book, is the motif of survival. This first really crops up when he says “That night we were so hungry that we stole people’s food while they slept. It was the only way to get through the night.”. The theme is also shown to be present when Ishmael joins the army, as he is told by the leaders in the city that if he does not join the army, he will likely die. Both of these examples convey that Ishmael has to do whatever he has to to continue living. As he does whatever is needed, he does things that he would not have done while
That the most dire of situations cause people to lose the innocence or naivete that they once held. Beah’s vivid imagery of the gruesome atrocities he witnessed and was involved in conveyed this, as well as his use of the motif of loss, and the motif of survival. The constant presence of loss and need for survival provide a motivation for him to do the things that lead to the loss of his innocence. This is conveyed throughout his memoir which help support the aforementioned theme. That theme, and the way it was conveyed can connect to many, and provoke empathy in many others, which is likely why A Long Way Gone was so lauded. It did something that every great novel has to do, connect with the human