This novel was a very enlightening, firsthand account of the atrocities of civil war that not only affect many countries and their citizens, but especially children. Ishmael Beah was separated from his family at age 12 because he and his brother were away from their home in the small country of West Africa known as Sierra Leone, performing in a rap group with friends, when their home village was attacked. Ishmael, his brother and their friends wandered from village to village in search of food and shelter among the confusion, violence, and uncertainty of the war. Ishmael’s recounting of his experiences is emotionally disheartening and hard for someone like me to truly fathom, but yet I do know that these atrocities exist in our modern world.
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Ishmael is conflicted with this turn of events because he doesn’t understand why he’s being sent away, and he doesn’t know where he is going. The loss of his “new family” is as strong as the loss of his real family, because the army has become his norm, and understandably, he is angry and confused at being kicked out of the army. He is taken to a rehabilitation center, where he struggles to understand his past and to imagine any kind of a future. He acts like a caged animal at the rehabilitation center by attacking the cook, throwing bowls and silverware at the nurses and counselors, breaking into the medical supplies for drugs, and breaking windows with his bare hand, cutting his hand badly where it bleeds uncontrollably. He goes to the hospital thinking he’ll steal a first aid kit and treat himself, but a kind nurse convinces him to let her clean and bandage his hand. A short time later, he becomes ill from the drug withdrawal that he is experiencing and is taken back to the hospital. Ishmael stays at the hospital for days being cared for by the kind nurse. The patience, kindness, and forgiveness from the hospital staff overwhelm Ishmael, and the boy from the beginning of the book starts to …show more content…
I believe the following information explains the transition of the children from their family lives to that of child soldiers. “The changes result from individual and societal events and from transitions into and out of social roles. Life-course sociology is the study of life events and life transitions, or how people move from one role to the next and the factors that affect those changes” (Rohall 158-159). This perspective attempts to understand the continuities as well as the twists and turns in the paths of people’s lives and it recognizes the influence of historical changes on human behavior. In child soldier’s stories, the separation at very young ages from their linked lives (their relationships with familiar people) is a turning point in their lives where they are no longer protected and have to learn to survive on their own. In other words, these children are removed from their “folkways” (rules of behavior and customs passed down through a group or society) and their “mores” (widely held beliefs in society, with many of them so widely held they are formalized into law). In these circumstances, these children perform “taboos” (violations of behavior prescribed through mores) in order to continue their own survival. In essence, they become deviant against their own upbringing because of the necessity to survive. These
Ishmael is conflicted with this turn of events because he doesn’t understand why he’s being sent away, and he doesn’t know where he is going. The loss of his “new family” is as strong as the loss of his real family, because the army has become his norm, and understandably, he is angry and confused at being kicked out of the army. He is taken to a rehabilitation center, where he struggles to understand his past and to imagine any kind of a future. He acts like a caged animal at the rehabilitation center by attacking the cook, throwing bowls and silverware at the nurses and counselors, breaking into the medical supplies for drugs, and breaking windows with his bare hand, cutting his hand badly where it bleeds uncontrollably. He goes to the hospital thinking he’ll steal a first aid kit and treat himself, but a kind nurse convinces him to let her clean and bandage his hand. A short time later, he becomes ill from the drug withdrawal that he is experiencing and is taken back to the hospital. Ishmael stays at the hospital for days being cared for by the kind nurse. The patience, kindness, and forgiveness from the hospital staff overwhelm Ishmael, and the boy from the beginning of the book starts to …show more content…
I believe the following information explains the transition of the children from their family lives to that of child soldiers. “The changes result from individual and societal events and from transitions into and out of social roles. Life-course sociology is the study of life events and life transitions, or how people move from one role to the next and the factors that affect those changes” (Rohall 158-159). This perspective attempts to understand the continuities as well as the twists and turns in the paths of people’s lives and it recognizes the influence of historical changes on human behavior. In child soldier’s stories, the separation at very young ages from their linked lives (their relationships with familiar people) is a turning point in their lives where they are no longer protected and have to learn to survive on their own. In other words, these children are removed from their “folkways” (rules of behavior and customs passed down through a group or society) and their “mores” (widely held beliefs in society, with many of them so widely held they are formalized into law). In these circumstances, these children perform “taboos” (violations of behavior prescribed through mores) in order to continue their own survival. In essence, they become deviant against their own upbringing because of the necessity to survive. These