ALWG project

Transcript

00:00

In a worn-torn country...

00:02

In a worn-torn country...

00:03

A young boy is about to have his world turned upside down.

00:04

A young boy is about to have his world turned upside down.

00:06

He would later write about his experiences...

00:08

He would later write about his experiences...

00:11

"Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"

00:14

"Because there is a war."

00:16

"Did you witness some of the fighting?"

00:18

"Everyone in the country did."

00:21

"You mean you saw people with guns running around [and] shooting at each other?"

00:24

"Yes, all the time."

00:28

"Cool."

00:30

"Cool."

00:33

Ishmael must navigate plundered villages and scorched earth in order to survive.

00:37

He will have to cope with his lost innocence...

00:39

and learn to forgive himself for what he's done.

00:41

He finds that he is not beyond redepmtion and must struggle internally to do so.

00:46

His somber and sorrow narration makes it clear how difficult is to overcome one's past.

00:51

One can tell that he's excluding pertinent details about his experience by the marked shift in descriptiveness.

00:55

This serves to contradict what he's telling us in the story. Despite the rapid changes in his life, he still chooses to hide what he did.

00:60

Ishmael often "leaves no doubt" when he's describing particularly emotive scenes.

01:05

He can't help but use his descriptive style when detailing war scenes or heartwarming moments from his youth that he can't forget.

01:11

One detail I noticed was that Ishmael named every single village that he remembered visiting.

01:14

It gives the story a profoundly real and personal sense of scale.

01:17

This is Ishmael childhood, as much as it was for anyone else.

01:19

He describes a husk of a village like one would describe where their local grocery store.

01:22

He quotes other people to provide his audience with relief from his own personal thoughts.

01:26

He often narrates from his own head, so it is refreshing to see who's opinion Ismael values other than his own, e.g his parents.

01:31

In chapter 10, Ismael writes, "We walked fast as if trying to stay in the daytime, afraid that nightfall would turn over the uncertain pages of our lives."

01:35

Using the underlying context of the situation, readers can infer that he is referring to the anxiety and fear he and his friends felt as a result of uncertainty surrounding their current condition.

01:43

Will Ismael escape the war that's claimed his family?

01:45

or will he become just another causality?

01:48

All this and more in Ismael Beah's...

01:51

A Long Way Gone

01:54

images- the internet

01:55

editing- ehitale

01:55

literally everything else- also ehitale