Ishmael Beah

Boundary Essay

By: Trevon LeGrave

“Well, I am from the part of the country where I have not only suffered because of war but I have also participated in it and undergone rehabilitation. So I have a better understanding based on my experience of the situation than any of these city boys who are here for the interview. What are they gonna say when they get over there? They know nothing of the war except news of it.” The boundaries that Ishmael faces in the book A Long Way Gone are countless. This book is a memoir of Ishmael Beah’s life and the hardships he went through. Two of these boundaries he faces can be put under categories of cultural and social boundaries. He is forced to overcome these and many more boundaries, some just to live one more day.

Getting along with people that were taught to be hated would be borderline impossible. For example even in a calm controlled environment upon learning that the other group of kids were from the RUF Ishmael and the other boys from the Sierra Leonean army attacked and killed them. “As the boys rushed toward us, I threw a grenade among them…” (pg 135) This shows how desensitised Ishmael was able to kill and how brainwashed he was to hate the RUF that throwing an explosive among kids his age did not cross his mind as immoral. Later after completing rehabilitation Ishmael realized that he was much like the kids he fought at the camp - blind followers hypnotized into hating the other.

For the cultural boundary: Ishmael going to the united states. All he had known about New York was from rap music so he had no idea, no clue, or no education that the northern states got cold. He also thought there was violence covering the streets, thinking it was more like Sierra Leone. “She joked with me about the fact that when she had first met me I was so cold that I didn’t care that I was wearing a woman’s winter