In Ishmael Beah's memoirs, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah states that his life's journey was a huge obstacle, but he learned to overcome that struggle by letting off steam as the two contradictory sides continue their battle. Beah achieves his goal of explaining his point of view to the reader through the use of rhetorical questions, staged narration, and parallelism. Ishmael Beah's ostensible purpose is to share personal accounts of his life with his fellow countrymen, in a country where war affects people on a level beyond imagination. He is able to apply his purpose using a grotesque and bitter tone. Beah approaches his audience of everyday people in this way to vent his feelings about war by sharing life experiences with his reader. To begin, Beah is able to begin his process of revealing his purpose through the use of rhetorical questions. For example, Beah asks, “But what kind of liberation movement shoots innocent civilians, children, that little girl?” This question surprises the reader in the way it is presented. Beah, who is about thirteen years old, asks this question waiting for an answer but it turns into a rhetorical question when no one is able to answer it. Beah expects a response in which someone claims how brutal and evil the rebels really were. Later in Ishmael Beah's memoirs, another rhetorical question comes into play. Beah asks, “How many more times will we have to deal with death before we find safety?” This question only describes a small amount of emotion since Beah and his friends basically personify death. Death is seen as a human being. In recounting this horrific event, Beah and his followers come face to face with death... in the center of the paper... counts of life in Sierra Leone where vicious killings and attacks occur. Beah firmly puts his life on the line several times throughout his journey with many people. He and his "crew" faced death several times with Beah personifying death. Beah's life was one big struggle with everything seeming to be a burden. Along with his struggles, the war greatly affected his life. A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a great way to show how childhood can be taken and transformed into a life of fear. His raw language and raw vitality give him the full body to understand how much terror is happening in our world and how we must reach a peace agreement with neighboring countries to show love for our world and our people. Works Cited Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York, New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2007.