Black & Red in First They Killed My Father

In chapter 9, Loung’s family has arrived in Ro Leap. Ro Leap is under strict Angkar control. Loung notices that everyone in the new village wears the black pajama pants and red scarf (a uniform that symbolizes fear for her). She says that instead of eyes, the chief of their new village, has “two dark pieces of coal,” (Ung 58). The Chief commands a soldier to dump out everyone's personal clothes, and Loung is heartbroken when her red dress is added to the pile. The soldier lights the pile on fire, and with the burning of her red dress, Loung’s passionate, youthful, self is destroyed. The chief declares, “Wearing colorful clothes is forbidden,” (Ung 59). He goes on to say that they must all wear the black uniform, which is supposed to make people seem equal, but instead it just strips away their individuality and personal expression. It is hard for Loung’s family to get enough to eat, because they are new to the village and new people are at the bottom of the social structure. B...

November 6th 2019                                            In Chapters 6-8 Loung and her family spend much time traveling. The motif appears in a surprising spot in my opinion: Race. We know the Khmer Rouge Regime targeted lighter skin toned citizens on the possibility that they were Chinese while the Khmers had a darker skin tone. The ethnic group with curly black hair and darker skin takes over. Loung also worries if she will ever see the fun (red) side of her father again. We see the color black in several places, painted on the night sky as the family travels, on the pants of the two soldiers who may have been bribed, and on Khouy's (the boy who would make her laugh) karate belt. 

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 - First They Killed My Father While on the road, there is almost no mention of the color red. In fact, in chapter 4, the word red is not written once. Instead many things are described as black and gray: Loung's Hair, or the children's bags under their eyes. Even the vegetation is described as brown. "Tall elephant grass and prickly, brown bush have replaced Phnom Penh's blooming flowers and tall trees" (Ung 24). Brown is a combination of black and red. Ung is showing that the only red left in her world is dulled down by darkness. The only red that appears in these chapters is in Loung’s dreams, where she pictures the lunar new year. A Chinese celebration with lots of fireworks, red fireworks. The only place red shoes up is in loung’s dreams, as the world aerobic her is being consumed by darkness. 

In the fist three chapters, red and black show up in a few different places. In chapter two, the main character’s father talks about auras, “An aura is a color that your body exudes and tells the observer what kind of person you are; blue means happy, pink is loving, and black is mean” (Ung 14). He goes on to say that when she was born, she had a bright red aura which means she’s passionate. Then in chapter three, the soldiers arrive. They are described as “men wearing faded black long pants and long-sleeve black shirts, with red sashes cinched tightly around their waists and red scarves tied around their foreheads...” (Ung 17).  The father goes on to talk about how these are bad men, and I think that their uniforms elude to that since black means mean, and red means passionate.

INTRODUCTION    Isabelle, Holland, and Graham are reading the book F irst They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. We will be searching for the motif of the colors red & black.