Document Type
Coming of Age and Education Essay
Publication Date
2008
Excerpt
"It seems that all of you have two things in common...You are afraid of looking a man in the eye and afraid of holding a gun. Your hands tremble as if the gun is pointed at your head....This gun will soon belong to you, so you better learn not to be afraid of it..." (Beah 109). These gut-wrenching words by the lieutenant foreshadowed Ishmael Beah's future numbing reality, as described in his memoir A Long Way Gone. The AK-47 became the key instrument that led Ishmael into a cave of distorted reality (109). Just like the prisoners in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Ishmael became bound by chains of ignorance and blindness, chains that could only be broken by patient and loving education.
Recommended Citation
Graves, Michael, "Plato, Esther, and Ishmael (2008)" (2008). The Valpo Core Reader. 91.
http://scholar.valpo.edu/core_reader/91