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Obstacles Faced In Loung Ung's Novel 'Lucky Child'

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Erik Knudson Ms. Geere 5/6A April 10th, 2024 Perseverance please help i dont know a good title Imagine losing everything, a country to call home, the warm embrace of a family, even a free mind. Loung Ung, the award-winning author of Lucky Child, goes through all this and more. In her novel, Cambodia just exited a crisis because an evil government known as the Khmer Rouge sought to eradicate the educated class. Loung’s family was forced to work in the fields, and the government killed both her parents. Once the Khmer Rouge was defeated, Loung and her older brother left for America. Loung overcame the obstacles of losing her family, PTSD, and moving to a new country, which proves that even through the greatest of struggles, people can still prevail. Firstly, Loung had to overcome …show more content…

Loung states, “My mind drifts off to find Chou. Chou had the luxury to weep openly at our separation, as was expected of her for being the more fragile sister. But I had to stay strong and smile for her” (13). This shows how hard it was for Loung to say goodbye to her family, and it didn't help that she had to be the “strong sister”, and couldn't even cry. Another example of why losing her family was hard for her was that she could not bring them to America to see her. When she was talking to her eldest brother, years after they arrived in America, “‘Eldest Brother, when we left we told them we’d be together in five years’, I remember him. ‘They’ll be waiting for us.’ ‘They’ll have to wait a while longer.’ ‘How much longer?’ ‘I don’t know’, he says sadly” (109).Loung still misses her family and that she wants to see them again, even though it's been so long, showing that Loung misses her family. And yet through losing her family, Loung became stronger on the inside, even if it was not right away, which shows that even through what is most likely her greatest struggle, she still prevailed, and so can

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In the Novel, Lucky Child by Loung Ung 2005, Loung Ung is a girl who is chosen to go to America with her oldest brother and his wife. Chou is Loung’s older sister and stays in Cambodia. Lucky Child is a story about them trying to reunite with each other while coping with their inner demons revolving around the Khmer Rouge genocide and the Cambodian civil war. In this novel, persistence is a major character trait that allows the characters to survive and eventually thrive throughout their lives in their past, present and in the end. Despite enduring hardship during the Khmer Rouge, It is persistence that ultimately ends up playing a vital role that helps the characters survive.

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Similarly, in ‘First They Killed My Father’, the significance the father had on the narrator can also be examined. On page 47 of ‘First They Killed My Father’, Loung, and her family have reached a checkpoint where they would need to be questioned by the Angkar. Referring to her father, Loung quoted “He reaches down and puts his hand on top of my head. It stays there as if protecting me from the sun and the soldiers. After a few minutes, my head feels cooler and my heartbeat slows''.

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