63 pages • 2 hours read
First They Killed My Father
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Chapters 12-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “Keav”
One day, a girl from Keav’s labor camp arrives in Ro Leap to tell the Ungs that Keav is sick and wants to see them. Her illness began with diarrhea because of some bad food she ate. In Keav’s camp, called Kong Cha Lat, girls are given very little to eat. Only Loung’s mother is able to travel to see Keav. As the men work, Loung imagines what happened to her sister.
Loung imagines Keav waking up with a horrible pain in her belly. Despite her pain, she follows the rules of the camp and goes to work. Loung thinks about how beautiful Keav once was and how the camp’s hardships made her beauty hard to see. During work, Keav occasionally runs into the bushes to relieve herself. After a while, she asks her supervisor if she can go to the infirmary. The supervisor refuses until an hour later, when Keav defecates in her clothing. Unfortunately, the infirmary is a filthy place with unclean cots, no doctors, and no medicine.
Once the family is finished working, they wait for Loung’s mother to return. When she arrives, she tells the family that Keav is going to die that night. She describes the filth in the infirmary and how Keav was lying in her own sickness without anyone cleaning up after her. Both parents ask for and receive permission to see Keav, but she dies before they arrive. After they return to Ro Leap, the parents tell their remaining children that they were unable to get any of Keav’s things because no one knew where they were. That night, Loung and Chou discuss death and reincarnation. Loung says, “I hope she won’t be reincarnated here” (99). Overwhelmed by her own sadness, Loung copes by imagines a beautiful world for Keav where she is able to live with her father. With the family unable to properly mourn for Keav, Loung’s father tells them to go on living to show their chief they are still valuable to society.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Pa”
Four months after Keav’s death, life for the Ungs continues to include tedious physical labor and starvation. The family no longer talks about Keav. They constantly worry when soldiers will come for Pa, especially now that their neighbors have been taken. One night in December, Loung overhears her parents talk about splitting up their children so they will be safe. Ma pleads with Pa not to do this.
The next morning, a group of soldiers comes looking for Pa. They ask for his help to fix an ox cart. Although the entire family knows this is a lie, they let him go. Despite the fact that the soldiers claim Pa would be back in the morning, the family knows he will not return. Pa hugs his family and leaves with the soldiers. The following morning, the entire family waits and hopes that he would return, but he does not.
That night, Loung’s mind races with thoughts about her father and his death. She has heard horrible stories about mass graves, cracked skulls, and death without dignity. Instead of focusing for too long on the sadness, she thinks about her father dying with dignity. She dreams of sending her spirit to her father so she can give him strength before the soldiers murder him. The following night, she and Chou discuss Pol Pot and her father. Loung promises her sister that she will one day give Pol Pot a “painful, agonizing death” (108).
Unsure of whether Pa is dead or not, Ma stays hopeful. This causes Loung to worry about Ma and her survival skills. Loung continues to dream about him and has a realistic dream in which her father returns to her and promises to look after her. Her youngest sister, Geak, also misses him, but her young age and her disrupted development leaves her without the words to voice her emotions.
After the family settles into its new reality, more men are taken by the soldiers. Ma continues to work, as does Loung. One day, Ma gives her a mouthful of shrimp to eat, despite the danger of death that comes with eating food that belongs to the community. Loung feels newfound pride for her mother at that moment.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Ma’s Little Monkey”
Two years after being forced from their home in Phnom Penh, the Ungs still live in Ro Leap on the brink of starvation. With the two oldest brothers in other camps with their wives, Kim becomes the man of the house. Kim decides to pick corn for the family in a nearby cornfield. Ma and his sisters think it’s too dangerous, but Kim decides to go anyway. Loung wants to go, but Ma emphatically refuses. The first night, Kim returns with two full bags of corn. The second night, he is caught. The soldiers beat him with the feet, fists, and guns. They let him go, but only after he promises he will never return.
Chapters 12-14 Analysis
These chapters show how death affects the family. The deaths of Keav and Pa only increase the rage building up inside of Loung, who only wants revenge in the form of pain and suffering for Pol Pot and the Khmer soldiers. Unlike Pa, Pol Pot will not suffer a violent, painful death. In 1997, he will die in his sleep of a heart attack in prison.
Along with death, starvation continues to be a major theme in these chapters. The fact that the workers are continually starved is all that keeps the people from revolting. Without food and without weapons, the people have no option but to continue to work themselves to death. The only thing they can do is think, and Loung continues to think about the ways that she can get revenge. Because families inform on each other to the chief, the Ungs cannot speak to each other about their thoughts of killing the soldiers and the readers are unaware of the thoughts of Loung’s family members. Therefore, we are only allowed to see what she sees.
As Loung spends more and more of her time in her head, the author depicts events at which she is not present through her young imagination. These events include Keav’s decline in health, her father’s death, and even events created out of whole cloth, like Loung vengefully murdering Pol Pot or sending her spirit to support her absent father. Through Loung’s dreams, waking and otherwise, the narrative takes on a quality of magical realism. Moreover, the filtering of Loung’s experiences at the camp through her rich inner life recreates the loneliness of an existence in which villagers are unable to express their thoughts without inviting violent retribution.
Nevertheless, the family members remain strong despite every attempt by the Khmer Rouge to dull their spirits. They do what they can to survive—even Ma, who appeared to be a weak character until she is truly needed after Pa’s death. The same is true of Kim, who risks his life to be the man of the house.
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