Similarities Between Night And First They Killed My Father

‘Night’ is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel that explores the horrors of the Holocaust from the author's experiences. ‘First they Killed My father’ was written by Loung Ung, a woman who experienced the Cambodian genocide as a child. Both narrators from each memoir place a larger emphasis on their fathers, two key figures in each story who experienced the genocide with the narrators, and helped them with their development and struggles throughout the genocide. Particularly, the fathers helped the narrator by providing emotional and physical strength, support, and guidance to survive the genocides. The essay aims to explore the roles that the fathers play in ‘Night’ and ‘First They Killed My Father’, and how they are crucial to each of the narrators'

In ‘Night’, Elie and his father are placed in the concentration camp together and rely on each other's emotional support to survive. On page 86, Elie and other prisoners were running in the death marches. If they stopped running, they would simply be killed. Elie could not endure the pain as he quoted “The idea of dying, of ceasing to be me, began to fascinate me…. My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me”. 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''. Both examples from each extract show the presence of each father helped ease the character's fear and allow them to continue pushing forwards, suggesting the fathers were the pillars of strength for both Elie and

For example, both of the fathers were by the narrator’s side, providing them with assurance giving them hope to continue surviving. Also, the fathers did everything in their power to help them survive, mainly by putting their child's needs before theirs, such as giving them more rations of food. It could be implied that the moral of each of the stories that the reader would need to grasp is that one should never give up in the hardest times. This can be seen as both narrators went on to survive the genocides and later on fit into more comfortable lifestyles. For example, Elie’s father’s presence allowed Elie to keep his strength to continue surviving. And in ‘First They Killed My Father’, Loung’s father took care of her to make sure she stayed as healthy as possible. Even though both the fathers died, each narrator kept their resilience and survived to the very end, where they were both rescued. To sum up, it can be argued that ‘Night’ overall conveys the moral of the story more vividly as the memoir bases much of its story on the horrors endured by the holocaust, whilst in “First They Killed My Father’ Loung places more emphasis on her family throughout the genocide instead of the actual horrors that took