Pol Pot is a name that should be the same way to create negative feelings in an American household. Mao Tse-tung or Adolf Hitler usually will. During his regime, he escorted many Cambodian towns to work on farms, thereby ridding Cambodia of Western evils and returning to an agrarian culture. Teeda Butt Mam is among those chased out of a Cambodian city, Phnom Penh. His journey from the city to the fields and finally to freedom is documented in the book To Destroy You is No Loss: A Cambodian Family's Odyssey by JoAn D. Criddle. Criddle herself was one of the sponsors who helped Mam and her family reach the United States. Teeda Butt Mam's story is one of despair and loss, but hope shines through in the end. Through astute and realistic depictions of Pol Pot's regime, the book compellingly impacts and engages readers, ultimately affirming that human hope shines in the darkest of times. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned'? Get the original essay Hope is a theme in Teeda's story, and human hope shines through, even though 'the future seemed a gaping black tunnel rushing to swallow me. » (Criddle 101). This dark tunnel is where hope most often escapes, but the dark is a theme in itself. Teeda, during a propaganda session, thinks: “The blouse only looks black. Under the dye, it's really bright red! (Criddle 100). The dye can be seen as a symbol: the black dye is the dark situation covering their hope, but the hope truly glows bright red underneath, even though it is covered in black dye. Ultimately, the book is the story of a bright red hope that shines through the darkest paintings, even though "[they] had to hide [their] humanity, [they always] refused to give it up in Angka. As long as they could laugh, their captors had not won” (Criddle 85). This serves as a reaffirmation of human hope, and is the author's main argument and reason why he wrote the story: as a testament to the power of hope and the will to prevail. As for how the author decides to tell Teeda's story, it is by establishing an emotional connection with the reader. By describing grotesque scenes, the author can evoke a feeling of disgust, necessary for the reader to experience the events as they occur. For example, take this scene here: “Bodies were piled up in the well and others littered the ground. Dismayed, the men then saw a baby who died before their eyes” (Criddle 142). This description here is obviously something that most readers of the novel have never seen before, which is why the author describes it in a brief, but impactful, manner. Teeda herself was “stunned by the scene. Who were these people? What had been their crime? (Criddle 143), a reaction many would share if they saw such a scene themselves. The situation of the Cambodian population is often described, as when Teeda says, "They were treated like wrecks, serving no practical function in a society that only cared about 'useful' objects" (Criddle 111). Pol Pot treated his population as if they were not even human. The world didn't particularly care. After all, “by decree, [they] lived in the midst of a utopia” (Criddle 79). The reader, for his part, gets a glimpse of the reality of the situation. They see what citizens had to go through.Keep in mind: this is just a sample.Get.