A Wierd Way to to Describe the Feeling of War

In the book “A Long Way Gone” Ishmael Beah continues to switch from a happy narrative to a horrible narrative throughout his book to mirror the idea that happiness is so fragile – that it can be gone in the blink of an eye. First he could be narrating a happy time like when his mother, his older brother Junior, and himself were walking to his little brother school when he thought “My mother seemed lost in her thoughts, smiling as she relived the moments” (Beah 11). Then within the next page or two Beah narrates a bad time, like the horrible casualties that he witnessed when he was just a little boy, “The last casualty that we saw that evening was a woman who carried her baby on her back. Blood was running down her dress and dripping behind her, making a trail. Her child had been shot dead as she ran for her life. Luckily for her the bullet didn’t go through the baby’s body. When she stopped at where we stood, she sat on the ground and removed her child. It was a girl, and her eyes were still open, with an interrupted innocent smile on her,” (Beah 13). War is not something that someone can control, one moment everything can be just prefect and the next could be a nightmare coming true. It continues to change whether it’s for the betterment of the people or for the betterment of the rebels. Beah is showing this through his organization, through his narratives the readers can know the experience of war and the ever changing ways of war. That in its self allows them to enjoy and understand his book. Thus making them more aware of the war in his homeland.