Character Analysis: A Long Way Gone

Uncle Tommy is Ishmael's father's brother. He is a carpenter in Freetown that has difficulties when it comes to raising his children and also the children that have relatives who can't take care of them. He is an extremely kind and generous man. Uncle Tommy loves to laugh and he also enjoys helping others whenever he can. Uncle Tommy eventually learns about what Ishmael's fate will be in the rehabilitation center. He decides that he needs to go see his nephew immediately. Being the caring person that he is, he offers Ishmael a home because he embraces him. Uncle Tommy continues to visit Ishmael every weekend. He takes Ishmael for walks and during these walks he shares many stories with him about his own childhood that he shared with Ishmael's father. Ishmael soon is ready to leave the center that he had been in. His Uncle Tommy takes him in into his home and treats him as if Ishmael is how own biological son. Uncle Tommy is very important to Ishmael in his life. His devotion and love provides Ishmael a home to have a successful future. Some of the other boys at the center were turned away by their families for one reason or another. These boys more often than not decided to become soldiers again and return to the army because the army is the only "family" that they know. Uncle Tommy manages to keep Ishmael out of this situation. If it weren't for Ishmael's uncle who knows where he would've ended up.

Compare/Contrast: A Long Way Gone

In the book A Long Way Gone the author Ishmael Beah chooses to start his novel off in the first chapter by using the method of comparing and contrasting.  This method is used to demonstrate Ishmael's concept of war before his village is attacked to his confusion and fear when he has to deal with the reality of the civil war taking place once it invades his home. There were many refugees that came to his village that were hungry and exhausted. However it was their tormented minds that he noticed appeared the most damaged part of them. It all seemed to be a foreign language that he was not the least bit familiar with. On page 6 the book states, "My imagination at ten years old didn't have the capacity to grasp what had taken away the happiness of the refugees." Ishmael said this because even if he and his friends had been told the truth of how the war would affect them once it hit their home, they would've refused to believe it because they couldn't wrap their heads around the thought of it being real. At their age they simply didn't have the knowledge to imagine the horrors. This comparison and contrast is important because it establishes the child Ishmael was before he was kidnappped to the soldier he is going to become later. Ishmael's village used to be an isolated and peaceful place. He recalled his childhood before the war fondly. His loss of his innocence is obvious. He remember's how kind his grandmother was and advice she gave before the war. He's comforted by her words still.

Synthesis: Saint Anything

I need something new to happen that I can base my life upon.

Something never ending that stays with me on and on.

Months pass by and everything is the same.

All of my good days drift into hard ones filled with dismay.

I tell myself tomorrow is the day.

But tomorrow comes then before I can change it goes away.

My desire to become myself grows more and more.

So close but so far, I wonder what I have in store.

The life I crave is getting closer each day.

All I've ever wanted is to be seen.

Not as a shadow but as me.

I need to find something to live for.

I can't keep being this small invisible person anymore.

I've been basing my life off of what other people think.

I wish I could redo my brother's trouble and make the problems shrink.

I'm fighting to become who I am and who I want to be.

Soon enough the fight will be worth it when I am free.

Free from the strict plain life I began to live as a young child.

Before the trouble started everything was just a game and life was very mild.

Times kept on changing and now nothing seems fair.

Sometimes it really seems like nobody cares.

It feels like nobody pays attention to what is best for me.

No one cares about what I think about the way some things should be.

I'm becoming my own person with the help of new friends.

But in my house with my family, I am on my own.

In my home it's as if my potential will never be known.

I think about so many things that I cannot say, things I have to keep in.

The guilty feeling eats away at me which makes my thoughts deepen.

I know soon I will push through.

To become who I am and what I'm meant to be as long as I stay true.

Truw to myself because I am not my brother.

I am making everybody look at me for me.

Now everyone can finally see.

My name is not Peyton, I am just Sydney.