A Long Way Gone Essay

Submitted By brendar1997

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Pages: 3

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Brenda Reyes

It’s okay to steal if you're poor and starving? It's okay to steal if you need to in order to survive or to help yourself or others in a time of need. The Joads, along with many other families, decided to move west but they only had a limited amount of money. If something came up, like if their car broke down, they would have to steal or bargain to fix it. They had no other choice because they had no one else to turn to or nowhere else to go. Sometimes people steal just because they don't want to pay for something even though they're capable of paying for it. Some people steal to help other people and in some way it's good and some it's bad.

In the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck there's many poor families moving west to California. The store owners and gas station attendant worry that these people will steal. "Wonder where they all go to," said Mae. "Come here for gas sometimes, but they don't hardly never but nothing' else. People say they steal. We ain't got nothin' layin' around. They never stole nothing' from us." Later the same woman sold a 15 cent loaf of bread to a man and his family for 10 cents and two nickel candies for a penny. The man insisted that the woman cut off 10 cents worth because he felt like he was stealing from her if he got more. She ended up giving him the whole loft after all though. The woman was angry with the people at first but then helped them out because she felt sorry for them.

An example of someone who steals even though they can afford it is Winona Ryder. On November 6, 2002, Winona Ryder was found guilty of felony grand theft and vandalism for shop lifting $5,500 of merchandise from Beverly Hill's Saks Fifth Avenue in December of 2001. It was said that Ryder had "intent to steal" because "she brought her own burglary tools," including scissors to remove garment tags, a garment bag, and a plastic bag filled with

A Long Way Gone

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a story of hope, courage, luck, and the injustice of our world. Ishmael’s story is only the tip of the iceberg for the injustice kids all around the world are facing. A Long Way Gone shows how love, luck, and determination is the key to survival. Love is a key to survival. Beah meets a nurse named Esther (Beah 153). Esther is the first person to ask Ishmael his name since he was a child soldier (Beah 153). As a soldier Ishmael was called “Green Snake” because…

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A Long Way Gone Analysis

unalike stories have the same themes? The story “Through The Tunnel” has a relation to “A Long Way Gone” other than it's a story, they both contain the same themes. The two stories contain the same themes, just with a different opinion on those themes. “A Long Way Gone” is a memoir of survival, “Through The Tunnel” is a story about a boy on a beach. The themes in relation are Acceptance, Goals, Hope. In “A Long Way Gone” the main character Ishmael, is to face up too many challenges. Ishmael braves all…

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A Long Way Gone Symbolism

Suffering from oppression is something no one should deal with. “A Long Way Gone” is a novel that shows how multiple symbols can be used for people to achieve the correct freedom everyone deserves. In his literary work, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier”, Ishmael Beah uses symbols to underscore the main theme of freedom and oppression. Main symbols as the hierarchy of needs underscore oppression in the novel. Ishmael's symbolic gun becomes attached to him as a certainty of freedom. Triumph…

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Long Way Gone Quotes

“Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to violent expression to the hatreds or adults” - Olara Otunnu “A long way gone” was written by ishmael beah and published in 2007. Ishmael is a normal person with a normal life that is until the rebels attack his town but he was in the next town over and they heard about the attack after a while of hiding from the rebels and losing his brother and his friends he gets lost in the forest and eventually he gets…

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Essay on long way gone

Mrs. Jacobs World Lit P4 11 December 2013 A Long Way Gone Everyone is like the moon, has two sides, dark and bright, and despite the atrocious acts of darkness the child soldiers has shown, but everyone shall get another chance to change. In Ishmeal Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, Ishmeal finds a way to reconcile with his community. As he has participated in the war, Beah faces the challenges of being an innocent child after being a child solider successfully with the help of UNICEF staff…

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Violence In A Long Way Gone

Violence is considered one of the greatest sins humans can inflict on each other. ‘A Long Way Gone’, written by Ishmael Beah, describes the tragedy of child soldiers fighting in African struggles for power. Beah goes into every minute detail of the everyday occurrences that happen to child soldiers like him. Violence can change a person’s life; both the mental and physical aspects of a person can be degraded and changed. The nature of violence is cold and unforgiving, and any simple mistake can be…

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Themes In A Long Way Gone

In the memoir A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael reflects, “When I was young, my father used to say, ‘If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.’ I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going. Those words became the vehicle that drove my spirit forward and made it stay alive,” (Beah, 2007, pg. 54). The underlying…

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Stereotypes In A Long Way Gone

In the memoir, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, he recounts his experience during the war in Sierra Leone where he is forced into becoming a child soldier. When Beah is recruited as a child soldier for the government’s army, the lieutenant brainwashes him into thinking that…

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A Long Way Gone Summary

While they were gone, Ishmael's home town was attacked, people dispersed rapidly and Ishmael and his friends too were on the run. People were fearful of Ishmael and his friends because every village had seen first hand what even teenagers were capable of doing in order…

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A Long Way Gone Themes

The theme of A Long Way Gone is war. This is the most Dominant theme, considering that the book was written because of a civil war in africa. The theme seems to develop very slowly as the pace of the book is very slow and almost boring at the beginning, but as the story develops and the theme becomes more lucid and clear, the pace of the book takes off. There are a few smaller themes in the memoir that play into war such as death, “Too much blood has been spilled where you are going. Even the good…

Words 393 - Pages 2