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Saving Sourdi Outline

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May-Lee Chai’s “Saving Sourdi,” 181-94

Background / Back-Story Places and events alluded to (you may wish to look up the following terms): Cambodia (183-84) Angkor Wat (194) the Naga (194) Phnom Penh Pol Pot the Khmer Rouge—1975-1979 Choeung Ek “the Killing Fields”

Consider numerous references throughout the story to bones, fields, barbed wire Consider the images in Nea’s two dreams: 186, 191

Plot Sequence: The scenes are mostly chronological with a peripheral flashback to the scene when Nea was 4 and Sourdi was 9, and Sourdi “saved” Nea “in another world, a place almost unimaginable to me. . . . ” (191)

Ages of Nea and Sourdi (Sourdi is 4½ to 5 years older than Nea)—

1. Opening scene when Nea …show more content…

What has she learned about Sourdi, about herself, her world? What experiences and epiphanies have brought about this change?

Some questions to ask and consider what the answers reveal about Nea’s character development, her motivation to “save” Sourdi?

1. Is there any explanation (other than genetic differences) for why Nea and Sourdi have such seemingly different personalities and approaches to dealing with conflict?

2. What motivates Nea to want to save Sourdi by attacking the drunk, stabbing him with a paring knife? Why does she say, “‘I shoulda killed him!’” (182-83)?

3. Consider Nea’s recalling talking with Sourdi in bed, Nea having claimed that she couldn’t sleep and “curling into a ball beside my older sister” (184).

4. Consider every scene. What does each scene reveal about Nea and her conflict? How do the scenes reveal a different conflict for Sourdi?

5. Study the scene in the field with Duke, Sourdi, and Nea. Why does Sourdi panic and start “running wildly,” taking off “like an animal startled by a gunshot” (184-85)?

6. What internal conflicts for Nea are revealed in the long concluding scene when Nea decides she must save Sourdi from her marriage to Mr. Chhay and calls Duke to drive her to DesMoines?

7. Does Sourdi ask the story’s key question when she asks her sister, “‘Nea, what’s wrong

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