Bending Adversity By David Pilling

In Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War by Akira Iriye, the author explores the events and circumstances that ended in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an American naval base. Iriye assembles a myriad of primary documents, such as proposals and imperial conferences, as well as essays that offer different perspectives of the Pacific War. Not only is the material in Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War informative of the situation between Japan and the United States, but it also provides a global context that allows for the readers to interpret Pearl Harbor and the events leading up to it how they may. Ultimately, both Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Pacific War between

In the novel Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen, the common theme tackle adversity when times get rough is conveyed throughout the story. Many events that occur often show many adversity the slaves had to overcome by accepting horrific punishments. For instance, when Sarny the protagonist of the story begins to learn new letters and words from Nightjohn, she gets very excited that she scribbled the word “Bag” in the dirt, but was caught doing so by the slaves’ master Clel Waller. “ Tell what your doing… I didn’t say anything… What are you scribbling in the dirt… I thought I’ll lie (Paulsen 62). Sarny was caught scribbling the new word, and she tried to avoid the trouble she had just created, by lying to Waller. Although, Sarny had thought for a mere second that her

He is well aware that his defense of Japan's tight society is subject to criticism, and at the end of his book he concedes the widespread corruption underlying so many Confucian societies, the diversity that makes overall judgments tricky and the racial homogeneity that may play a great part in enforcing Confucian harmony. But he sticks to his central thesis, fortified by his obviously pleasant recollections of living in Japan.

Overweight Lara Kelly was bullied and depressed in middle school. Now. a sophomore, 30 pounds lighter. Her life finally turned better. She made the cheerleading team, has new friends, and a hot boy from a different school likes her on Facebook. Her ex-best friends Bree, who ended their friendship two years ago when Lara’s depression for overweighting got in the way. Bree is mad for not making cheer team. Sarah Darer Littman made a book called BackLash that shows us to think before we act. If Lara thought of all the consequences that could occur by friending Christian on Facebook. Her life would have turned out differently.

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, is a historical drama that takes place during the Second World War. Werner and Marie-Laure are two striking characters of the book that have very different points of view. Werner becomes a young Nazi after being offered a position at a school in Schulpforta. Marie-Laure is a blind French girl that flees her home in Paris for Saint Malo. Due to the contrasting decisions and beliefs of these two main characters, the reader is able to interpret key events of the plot through the eyes of a victim of the war and those of a young Nazi.

Two bombs named “Fat man” and “Little Boy” forced the Imperial Japanese Government into surrendering on August 15, 1945 to the Western Allies. After WWII, Japan under Western Occupation was opened up to the world. With the Supreme Command of Allied Powers (SCAP) in control Japan was repaired and its old institutions were replaced with democratic policies. Japan had to learn democracy and with the aid of Western thinkers Japan had a new constitution. In the book Learning to Bow, Bruce Feiler is sent to Japan to teach Japanese students about American values, customs, and its language. In what became more of a learning lesson, however, the author was able to understand what it truly meant to be Japanese. Feiler is able to understand what it means to be Japanese through his immersion into Japanese society and by comparing his Americanized ideals with that of Japan, he is able to better understand the vast similarities and differences between these distant countries.

Michiko Kakutani, in his article “Let’s Get This Straight: Glinda was the bad one?” really presents that Glinda was the evil character in the book Wicked. I don’t necessarily agree with that because Elphaba did so much damage in the story but she did that because of Glinda so that's when I agree with Kakutani that she was the bad one. The title of Michiko Kakutani’s article presents a good idea of what his article will be about. Now when looking at the title “Let’s get this straight: Glinda was the bad one?” this title is accurate in my opinion because I feel that Glinda brought out the evil in the other characters especially Elphaba. In the article he starts right away presenting the theme “People who claim that they’re evil are usually

In this modern era the gulf between modernized nations and nations who are not grows constantly, and if a country hopes to bridge the growing gap they must advance quickly. As with any other growth, growing pains are routine. Among others is the pain of the existence of generations whose world is changed completely over the course of a lifetime. In few places is this effect starker than in Japan’s modern history, a country whose traditional ideals had to find a way to adapt modern westernized ideals to a historically traditional nation in a small amount of time. This era, the Meiji Restoration, put Japan through their growing pains and pushed the country to compete on the global level. Natsume Soseki offers a character whose relationships in the novel “Kokoro” are analogous to the progression and end of this Meiji era and how it effected the individual and their perceptions of change.

Japan, forced to rebuild itself from the ashes of defeat, was occupied by Americans in the aftermath of World War II. Although it was commonly perceived through the victors’ eyes, in John W. Dower’s novel, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Dower summarized his studies of Occupied Japan and the impact of war on Japanese society in the view of both the conqueror and the defeated. He demonstrated the “Transcending Despair” (p. 85) of the Japanese people through their everyday lives in the early stages of the occupation. In chapter three, Dower attempted to comprehend the hopes and dreams – as well as the hopelessness and realities – of the Japanese who were in a state of exhaustion and despair. In chapter four, due partly to the food shortage, crime rates rose as people began to steal. Women turned to prostitution while men turned to the black market. Some Japanese were so desperate that they stripped out of their clothing and exchanged it for food. Dower vividly conveyed the depth of loss and confusion that Japan experienced. On the other hand, Kasutori culture flourished in the 1950s as sexually oriented entertainments dominated the commercial world. In chapter five, the people of Japan turned wartime slogans into slogans for reconstruction and peace. They used witty defeat jokes as a way to escape despair. Even though they were defeated, the people of Japan pushed through the misery and sought to reinvent their identity as illustrated through prostitution, the black market, and “Bridges of Language” (p. 168).

The second half of the comic is a conversation among two boys who discuss the changes happening in Japan based on what they see as well as what they hear from their father. Their discussion draws on the arguments made by Cinzia Arruzza and Anna McClintock, followed by the lecture in class on the Meiji Restoration. Arruzza unitary thesis argues against the idea of patriarchy under a capitalistic system, and that people’s differences are what capitalism feeds on.4 This indicated that most women were exploited, in that they were expected to produce children who would become soldiers or workers and contribute to the nation. McClintock addresses the many ways women were involved in nationalism, mainly as reproducers and participants of national struggles. 5 What McClintock argues is that nationality is passed through the maternity line, and women become designated as multipliers for the

Rather than employ Western principles for Japan’s own success, as had been the rhetoric for some years, Japan transplanted broken systems that had negative repercussions on its people. Aptly, Soseki questions the point of continuing to employ Western, and especially Anglo-American, values in Japanese society. There is a consistent rejection of the West and its ideals of modernity, which often focus on consumerism, which is reminiscent of early dismissal of Western culture. However, by this point, Soseki is able to utilize specific evidence of problematic conditions in Japan caused by fascination with and admiration of the West. In fact, his open criticism of capitalism and certain Anglo-American ideals reveals a path for the clear rejection of other Western conceptions including white supremacy and

The western sun represents the western influence on the infrastructure of Tokyo that is so strong Kikuji feels that he is in a foreign country. Therefore, as Kikuji begins to lose his tradition and recognize the western influences on Japan’s infrastructure, it successfully exposes the shift from tradition to westernization in postwar Japan. Kikuji is not the only individual of the new generation to portray and recognize

During WWII the Japanese had high hopes to transform their country into an empire, but within five years their greed and poor decisions led them down a path of grief and despair. The movie Grave of the Fireflies gives an accurate depiction of Japan’s deteriorating society, Japanese strategy for running the country, and the conflict between the U.S. and Japan. Seita and Setsuko, brother and sister, live through the difficult times, witnessing how their once caring village community turned into an “every man for himself” nightmare. They also suffer through Japan’s attempt to continue fighting in a war already lost and the resulting starvation due to a dwindling food supply. As well as Japan’s inner struggles, like the depletion of materials and

The strengths of Burns’ study lie in that first, it has a crystal clear structure. She carefully crafts out her argument that the mass had different thoughts on the body as a national subject by presenting the state-level discourses and practices first. This naturally leads to the second part of the article, in which she questions with the assumption that the process of constructing the national body by the Meiji state received no resistance from the people. To further examine the local response to the state and the coherence between their visions of rendering individual bodies as public and national, Burns turns to two diseases which she thinks embedded popular discourses that intersected with not only nationalist one but also sexual and gender roles. This is where another strength lies. She is able to substantiate her arguments with abundant cultural sources like newspapers, memoirs, medicine journals, and fiction, and able to . By relating some historical events to the struggle of the position of the body, such as the Soma Incident, Burns indeed presents a diverse picture of the popular contestation in response to the state.

However, the pride of those few farmers is overcome by an even stronger element of Japanese ideology- the collectivist and utilitarian nature of society. The village’s general way of life illustrates this, as all of the individuals work together to plant and harvest the crops, and