The Will to Survive

The author gives many details about the lives of the people of her village during the years of her childhood and many are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles and hardships. Despite these, most of the people fight to survive and continue to do so even when their lives are incredibly difficult. Le Ly tells the story of many of these with most choosing to continue fighting for the right to live long after it seems human endurance would have been exhausted. At one point, a woman drinks her own urine to survive until help arrives.

Le Ly and her mother are also examples of this will to survive. Two young men who are soldiers with the Viet Cong rape Le Ly and when she has been violated for the second time, Le Ly says that her life is over and that she is not fit...