First They Killed My Father - Essay Mr.

Kennelly

“There is such hate and rage inside me now that I know I have the
power to destroy and kill.” Do you think Loung’s hate and rage made
her strong in the face of adversity? Discuss.

The novel, First They Killed My Father, written by and told from the
perspective of Loung Ung, is a chilling tale of a disturbed childhood,
where the impact and influence of the communist government, the
Khmer Rouge, fuels the anger and perpetual loathing of the regime
which she claims to be the sole reason of the separation of her family,
in addition to her many problems that she now faces. Although she is
positioned into a state of danger and vulnerability, Loung continues to
feed her images of spite and anger with the cruel intentions of the
Khmer Rouge, defining her purpose of survival and hope.

When Loung is initially relocated from the streets of Phnom Penh to the
harsh conditions of Krang Troup, she is sitting on the fence as to which
mindset she wishes to embrace, whether it be to rebel against the idea
and the concept of the communist regime, or to accept that this
change in lifestyle is potentially a turn for the better. She ends up
going with her father’s conscience, for he is a figure whom she both
admires and respects with great reverence. “At five, I am oblivious to
the events of war, yet I know Pa to be brilliant, and therefore he must
be right.” Loung comes across a clever but somehow curious
character, always inquisitive in regards to her surroundings and her
fellow residents.

As the family ventures further into this new manner of living, Loung
begins to sense that something is wrong, and starts to become
opinionated on the topic of the Khmer Rouge, as she learns more about
their background and what they intend to do. It all appears to be such
a dramatic change from her first environment to the next, all in one
rough transition. “Yesterday I was playing hopscotch with my friends.
Today we are running from soldiers with guns.” This sequence of
events is one that would be deemed too intense for a 5 year old child,
let alone any individual, no matter what obscenities they have been
exposed to prior to those events.

The family is then moved yet again, with Loung’s surroundings

changing and proving to be a lot more sinister and menacing than her
previous inhabitance. The Ung family are reduced to the consumption
of rabbits and birds, along with various bugs, which at a first glance be
considered harmful or even fatal to the one who eats it. Her rage
heightens against the Khmer Rouge, after Keav is taken away to a
camp where she suffers malnutrition and poor care, resulting in her
death shortly after she was sent there. She is not angered at her
death, but saddened, “I cup my hands over my mouth and scream out

Aaron Girton – English Literature 1

First They Killed My Father - Essay Mr. Kennelly

in pain over the cruel death of my sister.” Then matters begin to take a
detrimental downturn concerning the family, when Pa is asked to assist
the soldiers with a task, and it seems blatant to Pa that his time in
hiding is now up, for “...his chest inflates and exhales deeply, and his
jaw is square as he clenches his teeth.” He then leaves and the family
then assumes the worst, without directly mentioning it to one another.
Loung can sense what is going to become of Pa, and it is in this climax-
like area of the story where she initiates the ultimate desire to destroy
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, for she goes on later to say, “the water
washes away the dirt, but it will never put out the fire of hate that I
have for the Khmer Rouge.” It sounds absurd at this point in time, but
it seems perceptible that Loung would perhaps not have survived the
period of time under the communist rule if they did not proceed to
executing Pa, for this was the event in which she left the innocence of
her childhood behind her and was forcefully shunted into a world of
lies, terror, sadness and anger.

This twisted turn of events both confuses and scares Loung, because
she is so nervous about her wellbeing and that of her family. She then
witnesses Ma and Geak being taken away from her, and when Loung
later assumes that Ma must have been executed, she has a vision of
how it occurs. This scene that plays in her head is one that is both
disturbing and poignant. This enrages her to a point of extremity,
“Someday, I will kill them all. My hatred for them is boundless.” Loung
continues to wonder at how the cruel and bitter hatred of the regime
goes unchecked. Later, when she is moved to another residence, to
live with another family, a Youn soldier tries to rape Loung, and she is
horrified and disgusted at this prospect. “I hate you...Die!” she
screams at the soldier before she escapes his clutches. She sprints
away from him and refuses to let go of the secret of the dreadful few
moments that she took part in. This shows that Loung initially had
hatred for the Khmer Rouge soldiers, but now she hates all that play a
part in the war that made her life hell.

Her chance finally comes later in the story when a Khmer Rouge
soldier is captured, and Loung is excited, seething with rage and eager
to see this man punished slowly, cruelly, brutally. One of the citizens
strikes him hard on the back of the head, more than twice, and drives
a knife into his stomach, causing intense pain to him, as he twitches
and writhes in the chair he is bound to. After this, Loung finally begins
to realize that the punishment and death of the soldiers would not
steal the sadness and fury of losing her family away from her. She
refers to the soldier after she learns from this experience, “His death
will not bring any of them back.” She feels a slight remorse, and is
ready to ‘soldier’ on with her life, with or without the help of her family.

Aaron Girton – English Literature 2

First They Killed My Father - Essay Mr. Kennelly

In the light of these horrific events, we learn here that the story of
immense perseverance and determination is one that will ultimately
triumph, for Loung her initial rage towards the soldiers and the head of
the government acts as a stimulant for all her hopes of survival, in
which they inevitably prove encouraging to her mindset to keep going,
even in the pressure of not being able to endure much more from
anyone, not even herself. Loung is a powerful character, who shows
that giving up is never the pertinent thing to do, especially when the
lives of others have a certain amount of responsibility leaning on your
shoulders.

[1117 words]

Aaron Girton – English Literature 3