My essential question for First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung, was, “What obstacles does Loung overcome during the revolution?” This essential question ties into the novel because I found out what obstacles Loung overcame during the revolution. One obstacle was hunger, in the labor camps Loung and her family stayed in, they were given a low amounts of food each day. Another obstacle Loung overcame was greed. In the book it says, “I knew exactly what I was doing when I stole the handful of rice from my family.” This shows that because of hunger and greed, Loung took the rice because she couldn’t deal without eating.
For my topic I am focussing on the genocide in Cambodia. In the book it says, “Every once in a while, a group of Khmer Rouge soldiers attack a random village, raids the houses, kills a few people, and the ducks back into the woods.” This quote shows that the people in the village had to go through many things such as death. The book shows first hand experience to what happened during the genocide, while the article shows what they have been told.
In the article, “Scars of the Khmer Rouge: How Cambodia is healing from a genocide” states, “But about 20,000 people died from execution, starvation or exhaustion during this exodus at gunpoint…” This quote shows that the genocide in Cambodia affected people in many ways. This quote also shows that the article is talking about facts rather than talking about how they experienced this revolution.
The article and the book both relate to the same topic, but they have different perspectives. The author of First They Killed My Father, had a one point perspective since she was there when it happened. The article stated what people told them instead of reminiscing the information. Even though they both come from different perspectives, the information ties in.
