English Cambodian Essay

According to Loung Ung, “Hunger and fear make people turn against one another.” When it comes down to life and death, people will do anything in their power to survive. This includes sometimes hurting or stealing from your own friends and family. This is true for people faced with starvation. According to Loung Ung in First they killed my Father and Elie Wiesel in Night, hunger and fear will cause people to turn against one another. In First they killed my Father; Loung Ung proves that starvation will cause family members to turn against each other through the uses of imagery and irony. Loung is sleeping and starving from the little portion of food that the people at this work camp are fed. Loung says, “I have my greatest dream and my worst nightmare… There is food everywhere as far as the eye can see! I am so greedy; I do not want to share the food with anyone, not even with my family.” Loung does not share the food with her family proving she is beginning to turn against her own family. In the night while Loung was sleeping, her starving and growling stomach woke her up. Loung says, “I had gotten up in the middle of the night and stolen the rice.” This is very ironic because Loung is seen as a very kind and trustworthy person but now is stealing from her own family which shows that the quote “Hunger and fear make people turn on one another.” is true. Through the literary elements of imagery and irony, Loung Ung, in the book First they killed my Father shows how starvation and fear turns people against one another. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses irony and an external conflict to prove that fear and starvation will turn people against those they love. Prisoners from a concentration camp are crammed onto a cattle car on a train and being transported to a different location. As they pass through a city, people find it fun to throw little bits of food to these starving people. Wiesel says, “Men threw themselves on top of each other, stamping on each other, tearing at each other, biting each other. Wild beasts of prey, with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized them, sharpening their teeth and nails.” Most people do not fight for food scraps, so this is an obvious sign of starvation and a fear of dying. On this train another piece of bread is thrown into the car and an old, starving father gets a hold of a small portion of the bread. The father’s son sees this happen. The starving son fights is own father for the bread. The starving father says, “Meir! Meir, my boy! Don’t you recognize me? I’m your father! I’ve got some bread… For you too… For you too…” The father is killed in this action by the son. Then shortly after the struggle the son is also killed from a struggle with to other men for the small piece of bread. Through the literary elements of irony and external conflict, Elie Wiesel, in the book Night, shows how fear and starvation and lead to loved ones turning on one another for survival. In the book, First they killed my Father, by Loung Ung and Night, by Elie Wiesel, it is shown that fear and starvation will cause people to turn against each other. Between both of these books, it is also clearly revealed that whether a person is loved or not, people can easily turn against one another when it has come down to the single choice of either living or dying.