First They Killed My Father Analysis
FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER -2
How many of us have ever experienced sorrow, true starvation and death; all by the age of nine? Is it even possible for us to comprehend the intensity of those emotions if we haven't yet experienced them ourselves? Probably not. Yet this is the task Loung Ung had set upon. I believe she succeeded in providing us at least a ghost of those emotions by providing us an honest portrayal of the events that took place, not barring any explicit details.
This aspect helped Ung in conveying the desperateness and the overall mood during the war. Nowadays, we are much too used to newscasts talking about some war in some foreign country. To an extent, you can say that we have been desensitized ourselves. Media has bombarded us with graphic …show more content…
At the execution of the Khmer Rouge, Loung Ung spares no details to the point where we feel the splattering blood on ourselves. Why did she do this? Again, I believe that this was an unconscious effort. Loung is cleansing herself in a way by writing this down; she's healing herself. This imagery was burnt into her head, and she had to release the monsters that controlled her. This was her catharsis.
In retrospect, it doesn't make one view the author as animal or anything primitive but rather, more human. Who is to say that we wouldn't have done the same? We don't have a right to judge her because we weren't there ourselves. In the same light, we can't judge the Cambodian people either. Oppression, torture and death was part of their daily routine. Who are we to tell them that that is not the proper way to act?
While it doesn't reflect badly on individual peoples and society, on human nature as a whole, it does. When cut down to our core, is humankind this violent and hateful? Are we inertly good of bad? This is a question that fueled philosophers for ages and will be continued to be done
How many of us have ever experienced sorrow, true starvation and death; all by the age of nine? Is it even possible for us to comprehend the intensity of those emotions if we haven't yet experienced them ourselves? Probably not. Yet this is the task Loung Ung had set upon. I believe she succeeded in providing us at least a ghost of those emotions by providing us an honest portrayal of the events that took place, not barring any explicit details.
This aspect helped Ung in conveying the desperateness and the overall mood during the war. Nowadays, we are much too used to newscasts talking about some war in some foreign country. To an extent, you can say that we have been desensitized ourselves. Media has bombarded us with graphic …show more content…
At the execution of the Khmer Rouge, Loung Ung spares no details to the point where we feel the splattering blood on ourselves. Why did she do this? Again, I believe that this was an unconscious effort. Loung is cleansing herself in a way by writing this down; she's healing herself. This imagery was burnt into her head, and she had to release the monsters that controlled her. This was her catharsis.
In retrospect, it doesn't make one view the author as animal or anything primitive but rather, more human. Who is to say that we wouldn't have done the same? We don't have a right to judge her because we weren't there ourselves. In the same light, we can't judge the Cambodian people either. Oppression, torture and death was part of their daily routine. Who are we to tell them that that is not the proper way to act?
While it doesn't reflect badly on individual peoples and society, on human nature as a whole, it does. When cut down to our core, is humankind this violent and hateful? Are we inertly good of bad? This is a question that fueled philosophers for ages and will be continued to be done