Hiroshima By Hersey

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a turning point in WWII. They led to the surrender of the Japanese and the victory to the Allies. The day that the Japanese surrendered will forever be remembered. However, the destruction and casualties in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot be forgotten. Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced massive destruction, and it led to years of disease and misery for the Japanese people following the war. After WWII and the creation of the atomic bomb, the world lived in fear of a nuclear attack ("The Atomic Bombings"). George Orwell’s 1984 references to the atomic bomb and to the society and life after WWII. Nevertheless, one must fully know and understand the bombings and the destruction

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were calamitous airstrikes that left thousands of people perished and with brutal trauma. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, the government produced mini air strikes to induce terror into the citizen’s mind allowing the government to feed off that terror. Furthermore, the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 1984 have segments of divergence and parallel structures.

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 had caused substantial damage and countless of lives lost. People had continued to suffer, whether if it was from radiation injuries or rebuilding their lives, even years after the tragic events. In Kenzaburo Oe’s anthology The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath, is comprised of short stories written by people who experienced and witnessed the events. They retell of their actual experience or re-create the emotions and events of the unforgettable day. In the story “Fireflies” written by Yoko Ota, she illuminates the lives of the people in Hiroshima seven years after the exploding of the atomic bombs. She tells of the struggles her family is facing, as well as many others, and looks how the horrific injuries caused by the radiation affected the lives of A-bomb survivors. Through the use of imagery, simile, and personification, Ota depicts people trying to rebuild their lives, the lasting memory of the event, and long lasting effects of the bomb.

In the story titled “Hiroshima”, the author John Hersey explains the damage that the atomic bomb caused by the United States was horrific. Hersey supports his explanation by saying this on page 985, on lines 16-17, “A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these [four] were among the survivors.” The author’s purpose is to show that the bomb was devastating and had killed many people. The author writes in a serious tone for the audience to show how lucky the four people were to live through the bomb in the story.

On August 6, 1945 a nuclear bomb named ‘Little Boy’ swarmed and invaded over Hiroshima, in Japan. August 6, 1945 was written by the talented and mesmerizing Alison Fell. Fell’s creative use of strong imagery reinforces the major impact ‘Little Boy’ had on Hiroshima, Japan. American, Paul Tibbets- the major pilot, and his fellow crew were enthusiastic of the idea of being a part of such a tragic event, that changed the future dramatically. This had caused immense destruction and ruins to the plains of Hiroshima. This costed more than three-quarters of their population. They were yet to become ‘lizards or salamanders’, meaning the Japanese. Repetition is a way to inform a lasting impression, that is in this circumstance inevitable. By using sibilance,

The author of the book, John Hersey, had a good purpose in telling so many individual anecdotes about the life before the bomb. He focused on expressing the stories of these survivors in a way in which the reader could see it from their point of view. His aim was to demonstrate that each individual was a real human being with real feelings just like us. The author seeks to make sure that readers understand that the bombings happened to people who had a daily life and were astonished by what had happened. Hersey demonstrates that the bombing impacted people who had previously been undergoing a lot in life.

Human life is precious in the sense that it is all about survival. There are qualities found in humans that make survival possible. In the book Hiroshima, by John Hersey, readers experience the core of humanity found in the six survivors during the days, months, and years following the atomic bomb. Through inspiration, perseverance, and a sense of community, the Japanese people demonstrated the strength of the human spirit.

John Hersey's journalist narrative, Hiroshima focuses on the detonation of the atomic bomb, Little Boy, that dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Although over one hundred thousand people died in the dropping of the bomb, there were also several survivors. John Hersey travelled to Hiroshima to listen to the experiences of six survivors. Hersey uses his book to tell the story of six of these survivors (spanning from the morning the bomb fell to forty years later) through a compilation of interviews. Hiroshima demonstrates the vast damage and suffering inflicted on the Japanese that resulted from US deployment of the atomic bomb. And although depressing, humbling, and terrifying, this book was very good, interesting, and

     The book, Hiroshima, is the story of six individuals who experienced the true effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. Miss Toshinki Sasaki, a clerk in the East Asia Tin Works factory, just sat down in the plant office and was turning to converse with the girl at the next desk when the bomb exploded. Dr. Masakazu Fujii, a physician, was relaxing on his porch, which overlooked the Kyo River, where he was reading the morning periodical when the shell detonated. Before the eruption, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura was observing her neighbor destruct his house as part of a fire lane in preparation of an American attack. Previous to the attack, Father

Through the shocking and troubling graphic detail of human suffering and the physical effect of radiation and burns caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb Hersey exposes to the reader the deeply

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.

The crises to which this work responds was the total annihilation of Hiroshima and the aftershock experienced by those left

Hiroshima is an outstanding recreation of the complete annihilation and devastation of during the aftermath and the year following the United States’ dropping of the atomic bomb. As the war in the east carried on, many thought this desolated war might last a lifetime, all the while hoping for an end and praying it not mean their own end. To end the war, Americans had to pick a target that would leave the Japanese government with nowhere to retreat, allowing for a crippling effect that would essentially cause their collapse and surrender. In his writings, John Hersey proclaims that Hiroshima was a “… inviting target - mainly because it had been one of the most important military command and communications centres in Japan …” (HERSEY, P. 107). In the minds of American strategists, this must have seemed a flawless method to force the Japanese military into a corner, not allowing withdrawal without laying down of arms. There was surely no doubt that dropping this bomb of god-like destructive power would, at a minimum, tear into the souls of Japanese, causing catastrophic devastation.

Hersey's Hiroshima was originally an article written for The New Yorker Magazine in order to help a "reader identity with deceased and survivors of the Hiroshima's bombing" (The New Yorker). He accomplished this by

It covers Hiroshima years before the war and a year post-war. Hersey focused on six Japanese survivors and was one of the earliest accounts of Hiroshima. Interestingly, Hersey was one of the first Western journalists to travel to Hiroshima. Hiroshima became a national phenomenon that was met with a lot of positive reception. For example, the Army and the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to distribute thousands of copies of the account to impress Americans with the power of the new weapon. This is ironic because John Hersey was not writing as a propagandist and his report showed the actual and uncensored experience and survival of the Japanese in Hiroshima. Although Hersey was born in China, his views on the Japanese were not influenced by the wartime atrocities that the Japanese committed during World War II while writing Hiroshima. Interestingly, he did not submit his material to the U.S. government for censorship clearance either. Hersey states, “There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.” This quote signifies that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as an example of technological advancement and human knowledge being used to destroy each