The book “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah is a book that has many themes and lessons. It is a true story about a boy soldier. One of the themes in this book is survival. When war hit Ishmael Beah, it was all about survival until the end. From the moment Ishmael fled the violence at Mattru Jong, the focus of his life became surviving. For months, Beah had to survive by overcoming hunger and violence.

Survival was the most important theme in the book. Ishmael had to survive the war and in the forest all alone. He lost his family and friends. To stay alive during war, he had to join the army. He had to overcome his hunger, the violation, and the isolation. The book states “Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control …show more content…
After that, he had to learn how to survive on his own when he left army, traveling village to village, finding food and shelter. During this journey, he was haunted by his memoirs of the facts that his family members were killed brutally and now he is all alone. He had to learn how to survive with nobody to help. Even though, Ishmael Beah was finally in the relative safety of New York, he was still haunted by the memories of his past. The text states that “These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past.” (Beah 20) This shows that even when Ishmael was safe he was still bothered by the thoughts and memories of his family's separation, friend separations, and the Rebels attacks.

In conclusion, survival is a very important theme in the book “ A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by: Ishmael Beah. Ishmael and his companions all had to learn how to survive the attacks and war. They had survive hunger and had get shelter everywhere they went. Their lives had changed. Ishmael had to learn how to survive or die. First, he had to join the army to survive the attacks. Later, he had to learn how to survive on his own without his