When Broken Glass Floats

Pa is Athy’s father. He is kind and well educated, which makes him a target of the Khmer Rouge. Despite his education, Pa is slightly naïve; he believes he can reason with the Khmer Rouge and doesn’t fully understand the danger they pose to him and his family.

Pa is also a fighter, and Athy resembles him in many ways. For example, after losing his son Tha due to a lack of medical care, he decides to study medicine, so he will never be in a similar situation. Similarly, as soon as he realizes that he is about to die, he fights, even though it is hopeless. Athy’s fighting spirit comes from Pa, and his quest for knowledge inspires her own.

Mak, Athy’s mother, resembles Pa in terms of intellect. She is the only wife, for example, to recognize the danger when the Khmer Rouge ask if she wants to join her husband. Although she is unaware of his death at the time, she instinctively knows that it is a trap and manages to avoid the same fate.

She knows she must be there for her children, and she even gives up her own food to ensure her children do not go hungry. However, Mak does not have as much fight in her as Pa or Athy do, and she seems almost to give up when Vin gets sick. She does not even make the effort to go see him in the hospital, when Ry reports that he is going to die.

This gets worse after Vin’s death, and Athy describes her mother as looking “old beyond her years. Numbed by suffering, deadened by the death all around us. Too feeble to care” (120). Her mother’s seeming callousness appalls Ry, but Athy realizes that it is not callousness but despair that prompts her mother’s passivity, a despair that forces her children to take on the caregiving role that she is unable to fill.

It is important to remember that Mak has at this point lost two children and her husband. She has seen her country fall to the vicious Khmer Rouge, and she is very ill, an illness made worse by her attempts to ensure her children are fed. Mak is too weak to continue fighting, and her death is almost inevitable. Her death devastates Athy, but the woman she mourns died long before her body shut down.

Chea is Athy’s eldest sister, and the one to whom she is closest. Chea initially struggles under the new regime, but she quickly adapts, revealing in the process her shrewdness and wit. For example, Chea at first does not get along with the leader of the work camp she is placed in. However, she soon realizes the woman responds well to flattery and quickly becomes one of her favorites, which earns Chea time off to see her family as well as extra food rations.

Chea also knows when to shift her approach. When the Khmer Rouge find books in their hut, raising the suspicion that Chea is well educated, Chea shaves her head and acts as if she is mentally unstable. This diverts them, and Chea is allowed to remain with her family.

In addition to her sharp intellect, Chea is also caring and maternal, taking on the role of mother to her younger siblings even before Mak’s death. Her death devastates the family, especially Map and Athy, who looked to Chea for the love and guidance they once received from their parents. Chea’s death, however, does not affect Athy as did Mak’s death. Instead, Athy vows to honor Chea by becoming a doctor. She carries Chea’s memory and love with her everywhere she goes.

Of all the siblings, Ra seems the most traumatized by her experiences under the Khmer Rouge. Out of hunger, she and some of her coworkers scavenge for food outside the area where they were meant to work. They are caught and accused of being Vietnamese spies. Confined in prison, they are tortured for information and only released when their brigade leader reports them missing.

This experience leads Ra to seek safety over everything else. When the Khmer Rouge threaten to send young, unmarried adults to the front lines, Ra marries a local man, though she does not love him or want to be with him. Later, Ra marries Vantha in the refugee camp, again out of fear. Ra’s fear divides her from her family when Vantha turns out to be cruel and vicious.

Ra seems to have the weakest connection to the family even before her marriage, refusing to follow Chea’s last wishes and bury Chea’s body outside their hut because of Ra’s fear of ghosts. Ra symbolizes how dictatorships like the Khmer Rouge function: Ra’s fear makes her focus only on her own safety, undermining her familial and community ties. However, Ra is not completely without empathy, and it is her efforts that bring Athy back from the brink of despair after Mak dies. At the end of the story, the birth of Ra’s daughter unites the family, even as their relationship with Ra’s husband remains uneasy.

Athy describes Ry as “a free spirit” (277), and she seems to adapt quickly to the changes enforced by the Khmer Rouge. Ry avoids being sent to labor camps by feigning illness, which allows her better rations, which she shares with her family. This also allows her to care for her siblings when they are ill, and Ry is the one who cares for both Vin and Avy before they die.

These losses return Ry to the religion of her childhood, and she finds peace and comfort in the Buddhist conception of reincarnation, praying that her sister Avy will be reconceived as one of her own children in the future. Ry’s sense of peace, humor, and adventure endure despite her experiences living under the Khmer Rouge.