Never Fall Down Character Analysis

In the novel, ‘Never Fall Down’ by Patricia McCormick, the story follows a young boy by the name of Arn who lives in Battambang Cambodia, April 1975. This is the year when the Khmer Rouge began their invasion of Cambodia under the reign Pol Pot. “In the History Place” article, we learn that Pol Pot was the leader of a Cambodian Communist group. After being forced to retreat into the jungle, he formed an armed group of rebels, called the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his group then waged a war against the current leader’s movement. Because of the recent destabilization in Cambodia, there was an intense support for Pol Pot. Inspired by Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, he began enforcing radical ideals such as, erasing Cambodia’s history up until

Persecution against any identifiable group of collectivity on political, radical, national, ethnic, cultural, religion, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other groups that are university recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court, i. Enforced disappearance of persons, j. The crime of apartheid, k. Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.” (cite ur sources). Now, it’s widely known that one of the key factors in any genocide is the ideation and hope that you will successfully erase an ethnic group. And while this was the exact intent of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge Soldiers, after time passed, many innocent men, women, and children were enforced into becoming a Khmer Rouge soldier. A majority of the people were only trying to survive, and in turn had to sometimes kill. When analyzing characters from Patricia McCormick’s book, we can see that Arn and Sombo both were simply doing what they needed to to survive. Arn spent his entire life making sure he could survive, he didn’t know