In the beginning of the book, before the Khmer Rouge take over his village, Arn and his family are very poor. Arn does whatever he can to make a little extra money. A lot of the time, this includes gambling with older men. To do this he must get out of temple school. To get out of temple school he pays the head monk. "You can say maybe I bribe him. Or you can say maybe I give him a little gift," says Arn in the first chapter of the book. By saying this Arn is admitting to bribing the monk, but trying to put it in a better light. Even phrasing his sentences this way is a little manipulative.
In the middle of the book, Arn is not getting enough food to survive on. Neither is anyone else on the Khmer Rouge farm. Each day, Arn flirts with the girl who cooks the rice. Each time she isn't paying attention, he takes some rice from the rice bag. Even though this is such an obviously wrong thing to do, he has to survive and this is a way to do it.
Arn has to play in a band that performs for the Khmer Rouge leaders. Every day the members of the band live in fear that one of them will slip up and they will all be killed by the Khmer Rouge, who kill on a whim. The band is not doing well, so Arn offers his own form of encouragement: stolen rice. "You can say maybe it's a gift. Or maybe you can say it's also a payment for my life." This shows that Arn will do almost anything to survive.
In conclusion, Arn does what he can to survive even if it isn't quite the right thing to do.
What measures would you take to survive?
Hey Grace! This is so good. In answer to your question, I'm not really sure how far I would go to survive, because I feel like being in a near-death position changes a person's personality, probably making them a lot more aggressive. But if I were in my right mind, I think I would do as much as I could to survive, as long as it does not hurt anyone else. For example, I would only steal the girl's rice if she had enough to support herself.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! i agree with Talia- when you are in a near-death situation, or you are in need of something in order to survive, you probably would reduce to stealing or bribing. Like Talia said, you would probably do whatever you could in order to survive. If I had to steal, I would try to take from a person who was not in need of food or money themselves. Maybe the reason he stole rice from the girl was because it was not her rice, it was just rice she was selling, so he was not necessarily taking food from her. It was not right, what he did, but as far as thefts and bribes go, it was not horrible.
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