The Loss of Innocence of a ChildMany children in the world have encountered or are now encountering internal conflicts in their region which can cause a lot of damage not only to their physical body but also to their emotional well-being. In Ishmael Beah's illuminating memoir, A Long Way Gone, Beah explores the idea that atrocities in the world can traumatically affect a child's life by causing a loss of innocence in the child, and Beah does this through the use of imagery, flashbacks and characterization. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Atrocities in the world can affect a child's life causing a loss of innocence in the child. Unfortunately, a child from a certain part of the world, like Beah, may have difficulty dealing face-to-face with the conflict that is occurring in the child's country, and that conflict may include a civil war or even a revolution against their country . own government. As a child, Beah came face to face with Sierra Leone's civil war. Sierra Leone is his hometown. In his young age, it was difficult for him to understand things and his "emotions were in disarray" (86). It is difficult at the beginning of a war, like the civil war in Sierra Leone, for a child to fully understand what is happening. Typically a child Beah's age is hanging around the house, helping his parents, and living the life of a student through school participation, so seeing dead people that the child may or may not know from the field can definitely be overwhelming, and he may react in a way just like Beah did. The different types of reactions are something expected from a child with such innocence, and because of this loss, most children grow up to be evil or mentally crazy, and some do not care to be rehabilitated. It's very upsetting, but it's true. Beah's use of imagery throughout the memoir helps illustrate to the reader the daily struggles that a child trying to survive Sierra Leone's civil war would face. Many of these struggles include the worst forms of all: thinking, dreaming, imagining. Countless times, from childhood to the present, “[through] his mind's eye [he] saw sparks of flame, flashes of scenes [he] had witnessed, and the anguished voices of children and women came to life in [his] head. [He] cried softly as [his] head pounded like a bell clapper. Sometimes, after the migraine stopped, [he] managed to fall asleep briefly, only to be awakened by nightmares” (103). It is a pity that the child who witnesses the war does not have the opportunity to keep in his head the innocent dreams that he wants to remember and finds himself having a head full of the previously mentioned dreams. When facing times of war, a child will always look for things that help push reality away from the child's mind. If the child's family dies, then the child will always try to keep the happy memories of all of them spending time together in the realms of his mind, otherwise he probably won't want to think about the family at all. The child would envy another child who still had a family to run away from because he had no one to run away from and had to do everything alone and by himself. Sometimes these memories involve times when the child took advantage of a day he wished would happen again and again now that he can no longer see his loved ones. For example, when Beah's grandmother first told him that she was like the moon, she didn't really try to figure out what she meant until later, but "[whenever [Beah]..