James Coleman
A Long Way Gone
by Ishmael Beah
“So when the lieutenant gave orders, I shot as many as I could, but I didn’t feel any better”(122). Experiences such as this from Ishmael Beah’s “A Long Way Gone” are impossible to forget and Beah uses them to illustrate the importance of childhood perseverance. This novel is an autobiography of his days as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Beah juxtaposes a childlike tone with a mature one and also uses many metaphors and similes to illustrate the experiences that stole his innocence and prove that rehabilitation from trauma is possible.
The novel begins in New York in 1998 and heavily foreshadows the story to come by Beah saying that “Yes, sometime”(3) he would tell his high school friends about his experiences in the war. He then goes on to narrate his life during those years and focuses heavily on his part in the war and on his rehabilitation. He elaborates upon how he did not want to be part of the war but was forced to be, and that his “mind had not only snapped during the first killing, it had also stopped making remorseful records, or so it seemed”(122). Beah tells horrific stories of how he slit a man’s throat, shot an entire village, and used so much cocaine that he was completely addicted. As the audience gets immersed in the gruesome stories, Beah purposely lets them forget his age, knowing that the stories are going to be subconsciously associated with an adult. Then, he reminds the audience that he is only 12 by straying from his normal mature sentence structure and assuming a more childlike tone. For example, the boys “played marbles”(102) one night after they had just razed an entire village. He skillfully juxtaposes the abominable acts that they committed with the simplicity of a children’s game. In addition, he often adds small, seemingly unimportant details, to reflect the short attention span of a child. Children are commonly heard jumping from idea to idea and not having a straight train of thought. For example, when Beah is fleeing from the Revolutionary United Forces (RUF), he is trying to crack open a coconut and is unable to. For some reason, his failure just makes him laugh uncontrollably. Then, he says that he “could have written a science experiment on the experience”(47). This relates his experiences to childhood and school and shows that his mind was skipping from thought to thought. Throughout the novel, Beah switches between immature descriptions and mature descriptions in order to convey the internal struggle that he is experiencing, as well as the death of his innocence.
In addition, the author uses many metaphors and similes to illustrate his confusion at his situation. For example, when they are escaping from Mattru Jong (the town he lived in) a man gets blown up by an RPG and Beah says that his blood “sprinkled like rain on the nearby leaves and bushes”(25). The purpose of the simile is to relate something horrific to something mundane in order to make it easier to process. He felt detached from the situation and illustrated that by conveying his thought process as similes in oder to compare the scene to something easier to understand. Later, when the shooting and death becomes normal to him, Beah uses similes to describe his lack of emotion at his situation. He says that “the blood poured out of the bullet holes in him like water rushing through newly opened tributaries”(118). This comparison exemplifies his thought process throughout the scene and proves that the murder has become commonplace to him. Beah subconsciously associates blood with rushing water, and chooses not to dwell on the truth of the situation because it is too painful. The similes are his way of showing the audience how he was in shock at first but then became numb to the horror around him and was able to view it as something as normal as water.
In conclusion, Beah uses a contrast between childlike and mature tone to juxtapose his situation with his age. Then, he uses similes to describe his shock and eventually explain how he copes with his actions. He purposely uses the death of his innocence to illustrate his point that while one may never regain childhood, they can recover from even the most horrific situations if they choose to. Experiences shaped a person’s character, and though Beah will never forget his days as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, he is a living testament that rehabilitation from trauma is possible through perseverance.