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Analysis Of Loung Ung's First They Killed My Father

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Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers is a personal account of her experiences during the Khmer Rouge years. Ung’s memoir has allowed her to speak on the larger issues of war and peace, and how we can all become agents of change in our world. The memoir takes place during the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia. The memoir also describes Loung and her family before the Khmer Rouge arrived. They are then evacuated from their home. Loung and her family now have to run and lie from the Khmer Rouge and try to be safe. The intended audience of First They Killed My Father are the people who lack knowledge of the Khmer Rouge incident as they may be able to sympathize with Ung and her life. The purpose of this memoir
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In her book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman describes the story of the Lee family and the conflicting views that arose between Western and Eastern beliefs on providing Lia medical aid. When Laos fell to the communists, the Lees were among the thousands of Hmong who fled the country. They arrived in the U.S. with their seven children and settled in the town Merced. When the Lee’s fourteenth child, Lia, was three months, her older sister slammed the front door of the apartment and Lia fainted. Her parents Nao Kao and Foua Lee believed that the noise frightened Lia’s soul to flee from her body and became lost which they associated with qaug dab peg: “the spirit catches you and you fall down”.

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One example from the novel comes from Hong when she and Amah are reunited with the rest of the Ung family. Hong tells them about her own Khmer Rouge experience. Chou narrates Hong’s story and says, “ Hong tells them about how she saw a young boy beaten to death with sticks because the soldiers said he was lazy. Hongs words come out in spits and anger when she reports that the boy was slow with his work because he was sick and starving… After that Hong became the best worker in her unit even though she was many years younger than the others. ”(pg55)

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The pills dance in my palms, gleaming white and inviting…. Somewhere in Cambodia, I dream that Pa and Ma are sleeping together in the ground. I close my eyes and wait for Pa to come take me with him. In her crib, Tori cries but I ignore her.” (180-181) Loung has a deep need to kill herself not only because of her painful memories of Cambodia but also because of her grieving for Pa, Ma, Keav and Geak.

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Duch remembers specific details of some individual prisoners and their torture, while still trying to minimize his role as merely a man doing his job. The interview segments provide a resonating glimpse into the psyche of a torturer and killer. Today, the former site of S-21 serves as a museum about the genocide, and films like Rithy’s own S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine have helped educate the public about the atrocities committed by Pol Pot and his regime. Rithy Panh’s book is another important and fascinating document in that process.

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In the memoir, First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. The theme is when it comes to life and death people will do anything to survive. Loung and her family faced many challenges when the Khmer Rouge takes over. They fought and killed to survive and did anything to make sure of it. This means the theme is no matter life or death people will do anything in their power to survive.

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In 1954, the Geneva Accords set Vietnam into two separate national entities. The country was temporarily divided into north and south, gradually follow the roadmap of free election and independence. While the North was communist-controlled, the South was backed by the United States and the allies under the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. Without political background or network, Diem relies on American advisors and his own family, including his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu and sister-in law: Tran Le Xuan (Madam Nhu), the only woman that caused headache to the most powerful leader of a number one nation in the world. Madam Nhu was considered to put the Diem’s regime to an end by publicly mocking Thich Quang Duc, who performed a self-immolation on 11 June 1963

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Her father, Nao Kao Lee, was especially enraged on two occasions. One, when the doctors were performing a spinal tap on Lia, he said that was when “Lia was lost”, as the Hmong believed that procedure would cripple her in this life and her future lives . The second occasion was when he misunderstood that he had to sign a paper that stated that Lia would die in two hours, when it fact “released in two hours” was what was written. “In the Hmong moral code, foretelling a death is strongly taboo.”, and so Nao Kao grabbed his daughter and ran. He was caught afterwards, but these scenarios show that the Hmong had a strong sense of values that the doctors weren’t able to understand and both parties were at a disadvantage.

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The Khmer Rouge was a revolutionary group who wanted to reconstruct Cambodian society.   On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge attacked the capitol Phnom Penh. As soon as the Khmer Rouge got to the capitol they started to force the people to leave all their possessions and march to the rural part of Cambodia. “Hospital patients

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This shows that Loung idolized her father and these special moments between Loung and her father were things that she held onto in order to survive the atrocities that she experienced. Loung’s father not only provided provided physical protection by moving his family to places where they would not be in so much danger but he also provided emotional protection by giving Loung hope that she would survive these hardships even after he has

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The theme of First They Killed My Father is to not take family for granted because people never know when a tragedy might occur. Throughout her childhood, Loung Ung, and her family, Geak, Chou, Kim, Keav, Meng, Khouy, Pa, and Ma have to fight to survive through the traumatic experiences of the Cambodian genocide.

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