"First They Killed My Father" Lit Circle Blog

         One of my Essential Questions is, "What obstacles does Loung overcome during the revolution?", this EQ ties in with my novel study. My novel that I studied was First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. The EQ ties in with my novel because the main character, Loung, survives the revolution of the Khmer Rouge and we wanted to know what she had to do to survive it. Loung had to endure many obstacles during the revolution. One of them is hunger, in the villages and labor camps that she lived at, she was barely given any food to survive. Many people around her died because of it and she almost didn't make it either. Most of the time during those times she would be depresses and tired because eating was one of the best things in the world for her at the time. Simply eating a few grains of rice would fill her heart up with joy. An example of this is in the 11th chapter Loung says, "Of course, all that no longer matters to me; my thoughts are focused solely on food." This quote is saying that nothing else matters besides food. Another obstacle that Loung had to endure was she was always in constant fear of the Khmer Rouge. This group had all the power and they would kill anyone who showed any signs of rebellion or weakness. In the book it says, "The soldiers have the right to punish thieves any way they see fit, killing them if they chose. Their power is so omnipotent that no one dares question their actions." This quote is saying that everyone, not just Loung, is afraid of the Khmer Rouge. Many people disagree with their beliefs but are too afraid to say something about it. These are just some of the obstacles that Loung had to overcome during the revolution. 

         The authors from the book, First They Killed My Father and "Cambodian Genocide" use some of the same information, but produce different texts because they interpret the information differently. The book is from a young girl's perspective and life. Throughout the book the girl mostly exposes her feelings and emotions towards the revolution that is occurring at that time, she doesn't give off facts that talk about what is happening. For example in the second chapter of the article when it talks about the evacuation of Phnom Penh she says,"After each round of rifle fire, people push and shove one another in a panicked frenzy trying to evacuate the city." This quote uses the words "panicked" and "frenzy" to show that she had strong feelings towards the event. What she is writing is what she directly experienced.

          However, in the article, the author doesn't express any emotion, just facts. They do this because they didn't directly experience the event that they are writing about. For example when the author talks about the beginning of the revolution, they say, "On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge army marched into Phnom Penh, the modern capitol.  Khmer Rouge soldiers, young peasants from the provinces, mostly uneducated teenage boys who had never been in a city before, swept through town.  They set to their job right away, evacuating Phnom Penh and forcing all of its residents to leave behind all their belongings and march towards the countryside." This doesn't show any emotion, imagery, or opinions it just explains what, when, where, who, and why. The quote is just informational.

         In both of these quotes they talk about the same event, but they are told in different ways. The book has a lot of emotion, imagery, and opinions while the article has facts and information. The article's author interpreted the information as by just explaining to the readers what happened and why it happened. In the book the author didn't have that information so they told what they saw instead of what she knew. The effect of the author being the main character is that the author didn't really interpret the information, they lived it instead. The book is based on first hand accounts instead of secondary sources. When the author/main character was writing the book she told it by how she experienced it. Since she didn't know what was happening she only wrote what she knew or thought what was happening in that moment.