A long way gone post 1 yo

The book a long way gone is about boy soliders and what Ishmael had gone through, in his memoirs he uses various techniques to get his point across and tell his story. Compare and contrast are used to show Ishmaels concept of war before his village was attacked versus his confusion and terror when he has to deal with the truth of the civil war. The refugees that came to his village were exhausted, but it was their corrupted minds that seemed most damaged. He writes that even if he and his friends had been told the truth of what war would look like when it came to them, they would have refused to believe it. They simply didn't have the brain power to imagine the horrors. This comparison and contrast is effective because it establishes the child Ishmael was before in order to later contrast with the soldier Ishmael would become. Ishmael's village had been a peaceful place, and he remembers his pre-war childhood fondly. His loss of innocence is very violent. He recalls his grandmother's kindness and advice before the war. He's comforted still by her words.

                  

Rap music represents Ishmael's way into the modern world. He and his friends are mesmerized by its power and adopt the rap musicians' ways of speaking, dress, and behavior. (kinda like Jelly Joe) Rap becomes a way for them to express themselves through writing their own lyrics. They carry notebooks of songs and cassette tapes of their favorite groups so that they can always work together on their music. Flashback is used throughout Chapter 1 to reveal Ishmael's life before the rebels attacked his village. One flashback reveals that Ishmael's father is gone from his life and unable to afford to send him and his older brother to school. His mother defends their father's efforts but says he seems to ruin things by attracting the wrong kind of stepmothers. Ishmael and Junior's younger brother, Ibrahim, misses their father, too, but he is lucky to attend school. After he hears of the attack on Mogbwemo, Ishmael conjures terrible images of what might have happened to his mother, father, and younger brother.