In the essay “The Scar,” the author Kildare Dobbs reports the parallel stories of Emiko; a young Japanese girl and Captain Robert Lewis; a U.S. army Captain harrowing events of Aug 6/1945 in Hiroshima, a day that forever changed their lives. Emiko, a 15 year old “fragile and vivacious” Japanese girl lived an hour’s train ride away from Hiroshima, in a town called Otake with her parents, her two sisters and brother. At that time, her youngest sister was extremely sick with heart troubles, her 13 year old brother was with the Imperial Army and her father was an antique dealer. Emiko and her 13 year old sister Hideko traveled by train daily to Hiroshima to their women’s college. Captain Robert Lewis was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a U.S. …show more content…
Emiko and all of Japan; victims. Captain Lewis, along with the United States; offenders. Emiko on the ground and Captain Lewis who was in the plane, both remember the devastation and destruction that the nuclear bomb had created with the same shock and terror. Lewis remembers "There, in front of our eyes," "was without a doubt the greatest explosion man had ever witnessed. Emiko scarred forever with the horror she encountered first hand at ‘ground zero’ vividly remembers, “Some who could not run limped or dragged themselves along. Others were carried. Many, hideously burned, were screaming with pain; when they tripped they lay where they had fallen. There was a man whose face had been ripped open from mouth to ear, another whose forehead was a gaping wound.“ What they witnessed was inconceivable and horrifying to everybody. The results of the radiation from the atomic bomb was horrendous. Emiko saw that “some of the burned people had been literally roasted. Skin hung from their flesh like sodden tissue paper. They did not bleed but plasma dripped from their seared limbs.” Captain Lewis was shocked with what he
Have you ever questioned why and how the US government decided to drop those two nuclear bombs in Japan in the World War II? It is still a universal concern while many disapproval have made toward its humanity. In a book that I’ve read recently, from the point of view of an eyewitness, Yamaoka Michiko, the author of story “Eight hundred meters from the Hypocenter”, shows how humanity was exchanged with the ambition of a nation by reviving a heartbroken experience when she witnessed her hometown was destroyed by such a terrific violence in the war.
When authors write about World War II, most set their stories in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, but few would give a moment of thought to the atrocities perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army in East Asia and the Pacific region. However, Laura Hillenbrand has brought us this heavily neglected side of the tragedy. By following the vicissitudes of a USAAF lieutenant named Louis Zamperini in her bestseller “Unbroken”, she pays tribute to all ex-POWs and soldiers that lost their lives on the Asian battlefield.
Mr. Tanimoto consciously repeated to himself “‘These are human beings’”(Hersey 1946), as he attempted to save paralyzed, dying men and women, in the book “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. This nonfiction book was published on August 31 1946, a year after the atomic bombing fell on Hiroshima, Japan. This publication was raw, uncensored, and truthful. John Hersey unapologetically revealed the gruesome damages done by the bombing, while also silencing those who believed that the atomic bomb was a justified attack. Hersey’s brilliant journalism and ability to write this story without bias, is why this book was selected. The author did not want those who died to be remembered as casualties, but as mothers, fathers and children. Hersey wrote this book about the the physical, and psychological impact this bomb had on both survivors and victims of the atomic bomb. There were many historical events that contributed to the cause and effect of the atomic attack; historical events such as industrialization, the trench wars, and militarism. This was not just a simple bomb, but a complex attack on humanity.
On August 6th, 1945, the United States changed the image of war forever from what they had done to Japan. The day that Japanese troops attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was the day that the United States had entered the war. Also, it was the beginning of a new war that had been named World War II, the war that had devastating effects on countries around the world. Along with many deaths, the author explains that there is four people who lived to tell the story and had lived throughout the drop of the bomb. The author says that the people that survived were extremely lucky to be able to live throughout such an event “A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these [four] were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died.”
In Hiroshima, John Hersey focuses on the survivors of the atomic bomb that is dropped on the city of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. Instead of focusing on one individual, Hersey decides to report on six that survive the blast. The survivors came from many different walks of life and were all affected by the coming of the nuclear age. Mrs. Hatsayo Nakamura was a widow raising three young children. Dr. Terufumi Sasaki was a young surgeon unhurt during the explosion, leaving him to care for thousands of Hiroshima’s wounded. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge was a German priest that comforts many of the wounded and dying. Toshiko Sasaki was a young woman working in a factory to make ends meet for her family and her parents. Dr.
In the book Hiroshima the author illustrates this city’s most tragic point in history as well as its residence’s lives before, during, and after the horrific drop of the atomic bomb. The pain of over one hundred thousand lives were compressed and expressed through six different stories told by this reporter. The extreme range of direction their lives take can be seen by the contrasting examples between Miss Toshiko Sasaki and Dr. Masakazu Fuji. Toshiko Sasaki began as a clerk before the bombing happened; she was deeply into her family and even had a fiancé. On August 6th of 1945 the bomb
It is important that we read stories like Hiroshima because it gives the reader a detailed explanation from first-hand survivors what happened during the Hiroshima attack. Although this book is a secondary source it is filled with valuable heart and mind changing primary sources and information. The book shows the hardships, pain, suffering innocent women, men and children went through. What decision one made and was untouched how one slight movement, staying in bed, and hiding in a different place could have saved your life. Reading historical books in all gives you more knowledge on what happened in history from all around the world. Hiroshima states the events that happened before during and after the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, the war was brutal and horrific, but it was witnessed by all the parties included. In Hiroshima, especially with the invention of the atomic bomb the result is even more horrifying, but the afflicted and the perpetrators have vastly different viewpoints. In America, we only get the reported results of the aftermath of the destruction we don’t witness them firsthand. However, the victims in Hiroshima will never forget the true extent of devastation of the atomic bomb not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well. The effects of the technological advances in the 20th century have launched a new, deadlier type of war that hides the truth of war behind empty statistics and callous button-pushing that could destroy the entire
Most people know about the attacks on Pearl Harbor but very few know about how it affected the lives of Japanese-Americans living on the islands. In the novel, Under the Blood-Red Sun, the author Graham Salisbury tells a story from the perspective of Tomikazu Nakaji, a young Japanese-American boy and his struggles with racism and becoming the man of his family. After the attack, the suspicions and biased racism of the non-immigrant Americans is raised, which lead to the wrongful arrests of Tomikazu's father and grandfather. This resulted with him having to get a job, take care of his family, and deal with the constant bullying of his neighbor, Keet Wilson. In the end, he manages to maintain the tasks his father had assigned him with the help of his friends. This book showed me the importance of friendship, honor, and persistence.
John Hersey once said, “What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it 's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima”. Early morning on August the 6th 1945, the United Sates dropped atomic bombs into the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The “Little Boy” bomb which was equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT, destroyed most of the city and killed about 130,000 people. There were few people who survived after this traumatic event, and they suffered the horrible burns from explosion, as well as the radiation illness. One year later, John Jersey, a writer American, published “Hiroshima” as an article on The New Yorker which told the story of 6 people who
Hiroshima presents a cold and clear picture of the events and lives of those affected by the terrible disaster that ravaged the city. Although the facts and statistics present an accurate portrait, it leads to somewhat detached narration. And the constant switch between characters deprives the reader from getting too attached to the lives of any of the six protagonists. Sharply contrasting with The Book Thief, were the focus is on a single character, with a cast of supporting ones, leads the reader to become more invested in the
The non-fiction book Hiroshima by John Hersey is an engaging text with a powerful message in it. The book is a biographical text about lives of six people Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki and Rev. Tanimoto in Hiroshima, Japan and how their lives completely changed at 8:15 on the 6th of August 1945 by the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The author, John Hersey, through his use of descriptive language the in book Hiroshima exposes the many horrors of a nuclear attack.
The year was 1945. World War II had been raging on for years, for what felt like all of Hana Tanaka’s 16 years of life. Initially, for every air raid, every alarm her and her family, consisting of her, her mother, her father, and her 10 year old brother, would follow protocol exactly, taking cover or leaving the city if that was deemed necessary. They never missed a drill, they followed the rules, they knew that Hiroshima was likely target in the future, they were prepared. But not everybody was as ready to follow the rules and so they didn’t. And as the war progressed, they began to follow the lead of those around them. The didn’t always take precautions when an alarm sounded; there had been so many false alarms and they were tired. Beyond tired, they were exhausted and disheartened, they simply couldn’t muster up the strength to follow precautions.
The year is 1941. In two continents thousands of miles away, superpowers, both politically and precisely ply weapons as totalitarianism and nationalism delights in an amelioration never before seen in the history of mankind. Here you are, marooned on a rock in the Pacific, suspended between the East and the West betwixt thousands of miles of water, unknown to you that it would be men of your very same ancestry, not the mechanized, human corollary of National Socialism in Europe as you expected that would be flying bombers 500 feet above your home, letting loose their meteoric cargo over your heart while doing so.. This is the story of Tomi, a young boy of Japanese descent living on Hawaii during the events of the Second World War. With the
By focusing on three generations instead of any particular generation, Kurosawa creates a medium to which multiple groups of people can relate. As time passes, and as fewer and fewer people have experienced August 9, 1945 directly, Kurosawa reminds everyone that the bomb continues to affect people to this day. Kane’s grandchildren are an example of how to remain thoughtful about the bomb and its consequences while not experiencing it firsthand, while Kane’s children are an example of how not to treat the topic of the bomb and its consequences. Ultimately, Kurosawa wants to emphasize that the Japanese should not have to throw away their history in order to survive. Only in doing so can one begin to accept and reflect on the events of the