Discussion Questions for Ishmael Beahs A Long Way Gone (pp. 1-218)

1. War is a potentially stressful experience for those involved: combatants, support staff, medical personnel, civilians, etc. How might such a difficult experience make it hard for people involved to remember details from their wartime experiences correctly Think back to Vonneguts novel and our discussions of it. Can it offer any help with these questions?
2. Beah pays a lot of attention to the natural world. How does he incorporate references to or descriptions of nature into his narrative? Give an example and analyze what it adds to the text.
3. Beahs narrative follows a common trajectory in narratives about war: he discusses how he moves from a state of innocence to one of experience. At the beginning he is living a normal life, which is suddenly and forever destroyed when the civil war comes to his area of Sierra Leone. What is Beahs life like at the beginning, and how does he respond to the sudden change of circumstances? How does he survive and begin to adapt to his new environment? How does he eventually regain his humanity?