Literary Analysis #2

Topics and Events
1. A Long Way Gone is the true story of Ishmael Beah, who becomes an unwilling boy soldier during a civil war in Sierra Leone. When he is twelve years old, Beah's village is attacked while he is away performing in a rap group with friends. Among the confusion, violence, and uncertainty of the war, Ishmael, his brother, and his friends wander from village to village in search of food and shelter. Everyday is a struggle of survival, and the boys find themselves committing acts they would never have believed themselves capable of.

Its basically about his life and all the things he had to go through just to reach freedom.

2. The author chose to write about this because it was something very personal and rather amazing that he is still alive today. There are extremely people who have had the life that he has had and lived to find freedom and the fact that he learned to write like he can is simply amazing. He was writing his personal memoirs so that his story is forever recorded.

3. I chose this book because it sounded really interesting and I read a summary online on my phone before I bought it. The book  appealed to me because I had personally been to Africa and heard a lot of different stories of child soldiers being used and he wasn't much younger than I am so I could've connected to him easier. The book came to my attention when I was in the library and saw the cover and it caught my eye. It had a child walking with an RPG round so I had to look in to it. It looked interesting. What kept me reading was his amazing story. The plot and anticipation kept building.

4, I found the book very realistic because things like this still happen today in Africa and it is no different. I couldn't really connect with many people or events throughout the story because it is a really tragic story and I have a fairly normal life. I could only connect with the fact that he was around my age and suddenly was on his own so I could imagine that feeling of dissolution.

People
1. The author met a lot of people and his life, some of them suffered along with him and some would save him and change him. The main characters in the story are those that were either his friends that helped him get through it all, or adults that served as parent figures for him as his were murdered. This says that he definitely lacked parental guidance and would try to find these qualities in the adults he met that brought him some good. The author's tone is fairly depressing and without hope. He writes with a tone that definitely captures the emotion of the situation. What it says about his subjects is that although he recognizes their existence as a sense of hope and common ground, he still doesn't find the point in life and only sees the pain and torture of it all.
2. Uncle Tommy is an older man probably in his 40's which is fairly old for people of his situation. He is a carpenter and is very kind to Ishmael. If I were to write him as a fictional character I would use indirect characterization because he does a lot of actions that would describe his personality. Esther is a nurse working for UNICEF and is very sympathetic for child soldiers, she is in her mid 30's. She is very kind and basically a life saver for Ishmael as she takes him in and rehabilitates him. Again I would use indirect characterization because she is very influential on his life with her actions.

3. Uncle Tommy was interesting enough to write about because he filled in a lot of the gaps in Ishmael's memory of his child hood and basically gave him his impression of the family he used to have. Esther was interesting to write about because she took him in and rehabilitated him and showed him that life isn't all pain. She brought him back to life basically.

1. Two examples of direct characterization were in the beginning when the author was describing his family and when he was describing Esther. He said what her job was and that she was very kind to everyone, something he wasn't used to. Two examples of indirect characterization is when he was directly describing the refugees that came into his village. He said that he could literally see the fear and pain on their faces and imagined all the things they endured. Another is when he first got captured and he told all the horrible things he was forced to do and his addiction to drugs and this was indirectly characterizing the leaders, they basically forced the children to do all this because it made them better soldiers. The use of both approaches makes the reader more in tune with the story and characters because every description will make the reader think if its literal or figurative.

2. When the author characterizes, his diction and syntax doesn't really change that much. He doesn't change the tone and writes as if he was describing the people as if he was doing it at that time and place. Like when he was describing the generals, he still used some rather vulgar language but it doesn't take away from the meaning because he hated them so much and that captured the feeling.

3. The protagonist is fairly dynamic. His personality changes with whatever is going on. If a glimpse of hope is seen, you can definitely tell it turns his whole day around. Throughout the story he begins to understand what is happening around him and falls in to the temptations he faces. He is also round because the reader has a good idea of who he is from the start. This helps the reader to connect more with the protagonist because they understand him.

4. After reading I definitely felt like I had met the author. He described his life story so vividly and perfectly that I felt like I knew him. I could have talked to him about his own life and know what he was talking about. A good example of this is when he described how he was wondering the country with his friends. Just them and the world. I could connect with this because I've been backpacking with friends and I know that feeling of freedom.

Style
1. The author used some foreshadowing and anticipation to show that his life was always changing and he had to adapt. He foreshadowed by using happy times to give the impression that something ominous was on the horizon. The audience knows that he had a very dramatic life, so a happy moment just wouldn't seem right.

2. The author uses rather short descriptions and uses the characters actions to fill in the blanks. There is a lot of action that happens throughout the book because his life was very eventful. More action than just dialogue. This choice has the effect of making the reader think for themselves a little bit. It gave me more room to imagine what people were like instead of having direct characterization to make me feel a way about the characters.

3. The author uses blunt vulgar descriptions to create tone and mood. A lot of dramatic and emotionally jarring events happen throughout the story so that's the best way of putting it. Basically saying it is what it is and its unchangeable.

4. The author sounded fairly disillusioned throughout the novel. His story was depressing with the fact that just simple innocent children are being forced to kill and steal. His attitude was that he hated who he was becoming. He used to be a typical good boy but he was forced to deal with the realities of war. His innocence was ripped away from him.

5. The novel didn't really include any documents or anything. This didn't matter in my thinking because I knew that he was writing about his true life events so that they were credible enough just because he experienced them first hand. I didn't need real evidence to believe that these things actually happened.

Enduring Memory
After reading this novel my memory is going to be the fact that the world is as happy and fair as it may seem. We are very fortunate to live in the place we do now. A place not in civil war, forcing children to fight along side adults against their will. No person should be forced to fight for something they don't even believe in. They don't even know the cause and they are just basically fighting for survival. Children shouldn't have to question whether or not they even want to live to see tomorrow.