Arn's Motivation In A Khmer Rouge Prison Camp

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In a Khmer Rouge prison camp, Arn finds motivation to survive when he finds his sister, whom he loves and cares for. In 1974, the country that Arn lived in named Cambodia was taken over by a group of communists called the Khmer Rouge. These Khmer Rouge tortured the Cambodians by making them work almost all day and night in rice fields and also starved them by feeding them tiny portions of rice. In result, lots of Cambodians gave up on life because they had no motivation to live and no hope. Arn also went through this torture and was forced to live in these terrible conditions, but describes how he regained his motivation to live when he finds his sister, “Long time ago I kill all hope in myself. And live only like animal, survive one day, then one day more. …show more content…

My family. Someone who love me. Alive. And I say ‘Now I know you are still living, I will live too’” (McCormick 129). Motivation is a very powerful tool and can be found very easily. This is shown when Arn finds his sister. Before finding his sister, Arn was going through the motions of life and was not motivated to live anymore. Then when he found his sister, he quickly became motivated to live because he had his sister to live for and he was motivated to stay alive as long as he had his sister in his life. The power of motivation is also shown in this situation because Arn went from not wanting to live, to wanting to live after just from seeing his sister alive. If it weren’t for Arn finding his sister, he might not have lived because he had no motivation to

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