Le Ly Hayslip: When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

 Word Count: 577

 From When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip

“She clung to me for security just as I clung to her for companionship – although I could never make her safe any more than she could substitute for my own lost brothers and sisters.” (368).

“Nobody would be interested in the truth. The same ‘facts’ were there for everyone to see and truth, in this war, was whatever you wanted to make it. And, as if all this wasn't bad enough, I had brought it on by disobeying my father. I was a disgrace and liability to everyone. I didn't deserve to live” (375).

Le Ly was a very active part of this war, as much as a common woman could be. She was a lookout and in fact saved many Viet Cong lives, but she and her village suffered a lot from this war. It seems the Viet Cong appreciated her and her village's help and sacrifices but did not do much to help them through the suffering they were going through. Especially after she is arrested the first time and the questioning and bombing starts. If the Viet Cong came to help them in any way she would have written about it but they were on their own. 

When Thien, Le Ly’s friend, showed up things only got worse. Thien was very important to Le Ly evidently because she says that they clung to each other to make up for what they had lost because of the war. For Thien it was security and safety but for Le Ly it was companionship, since her siblings were lost. But this all changed when they were both caught in a trench after jumping to avoid the shells and were arrested and taken to “My Thi”, a maximum security prison that was infamous for torture. They were horrible to her, threatening her with terrible punishments and enacting others on her. Le Ly was only in there for about 3 days and in those three days she developed a strategy for survival and it worked. Her mother got her out of the prison with a bribe and she went back to her village but Thien did not go with her. The villagers were very suspicious of her after that. Her father's actions only made the suspicion worse and so she decided to disobey her father and to do her work. But that only led to Viet Cong getting killed. It was at this point where she had given up. She blamed herself for all of these things and she understood that she also brought them upon her father which was devastating for her. In fact she says, “I was a disgrace and liability to everyone. I didn't deserve to live” (375).

Both Thien and Le Ly lost the only thing that had brought them any comfort, Thien’s security and safety and Le Ly’s companionship. Thien, at the end of the story, was still stuck in ‘My Thi’ prison where her security was non-existent and her safety was compromised. Le Ly was not able to protect her from the torture and maybe even death she inevitably faced. Le Ly, at the end of the story, had lost the companionship of everyone. The truth did not matter in this war, only what they perceived it to be. She had started with much praise from the villagers and lost it and Thien was not able to be there to bring her comfort and companionship when everyone else believed she was a traitor.