Essay on Hiroshima by John Hersey

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.

     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

John Hersey’s Hiroshima is written in logical and chronological order. It begins in the past, and then it smoothly moves farther in time and ends with statements and questions that are inspiring to further thought. Hersey arranged the sequence throughout forty years after the explosion, so that the reader can follow the characters’ lives as well as their history and surroundings. The title itself announces the subject and prepares the reader for the approach to take. It refers to the whole concept of the book, it tells the reader that it revolves around the city where the first atomic bomb was dropped. The book content is five chapters, however, the first edition originally appeared with four.

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.

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

When the Atomic Bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima, the people who experienced it were not expecting it to occur the way it did. We were given an insight of the lives of several characters on that fateful morning in August in 1945. Neighboring towns had all been bombarded by American B-29 raids, but so far Hiroshima had been spared and rumors spread that “something special” was in store for them. Every plane that flew overhead was a considered a threat and would set off the air raid warning, consequently that morning people even though the siren sounded earlier people were either going about their everyday routines or preparing for the worst. The people of Hiroshima were completely confused when the atomic bomb was dropped over their city because they were all expecting a warning of some kind, either from the U.S or the air-raid sirens but there was nothing heard before the bomb was dropped. Hersey describes it as a “noiseless flash,” which conjures the image of silence and a startlingly bright light as total buildings were decimated. With the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima, we ushered in a new age of

After the bomb was dropped many people had developed serious health issues, many not knowing they had any. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest, had to have repeated visits to the hospital, to be treated for medical symptoms commonly found in the A-bomb survivors. “Back in the hospital in Tokyo for the second time, Father Kleinsorge was suffering from fever, diarrhea, wounds that would not heal, wildly fluctuating blood counts, and utter exhaustion. For the rest of his life, he was to be a classic case history of… borderline form of A-bomb sickness… many of which turned up in hibakusha…” (Hersey, 110). A few years after the atom bomb was dropped many survivors, commonly called hibakusha, meaning explosion-affected persons, had to make many trips to the hospital because the United States dropped the atom bomb. Dr. Fujii, a physician who has a private hospital, planned to have a gathering on New Year’s Day with his family, but never showed up. “At half past eleven, Dr. Fujii had not appeared, and

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.

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.

In John Hersey's Hiroshima, he based his book upon the one perspective that, the bombing of Hiroshima was an act of inhumanity. What Hersey failed to do was to give the perspective of the Americans. Hersey did not account for the Pearl Harbor bombing of 1941 or the death march in the Japanese Bataan Camps in 1942. Without giving both perspectives, Hersey does not give the reader a fair chance to form their own opinion; instead, the reader is swayed into Hersey's bias beliefs of the event.

The dropping of the atomic bomb has been significant in understanding the long term effects that radiation has on the body. It was important that the bomb be used in order for our society to comprehend the repercussions of nuclear warfare. In the book Hiroshima, a survivor named Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto briefly describes a commission set up by the United States

When beginning this story it's not very easy to catch on to Hersey's beliefs but keep reading onto the next chapter and you see his language change drastically. Hersey’s first slip up was when he stated “B-29 raid that everyone expected Hiroshima to suffer” (pg.13) Hersey says this nonchalantly as though a nuclear bomb wasn't that big of deal. Just because the people of Hiroshima knew of the bomb does not make the aftermath

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

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

On the other hand, the more patriotic viewpoint of the debate at the time was that the dropping of the bomb was beneficial to saving American lives as well as lessened the number of additional casualties. This novel was able to show the viewpoint of the Japanese. The hardships, the health, and the ever lasting effect on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were able to diminish some of the pride people had in the bomb. One specific example that truly caught the attention of the readers was Mrs. Nakamura. In a flash of light, her house was mere ruins and her most of her family was killed. She was left as a single mother supporting her family in the worst of economy by taking the oddest of jobs. Most people were ignorant of the fact of how they affected civilian lives, not just soldiers. Hersey used the characters and the story to convey his viewpoint of the atomic bomb and helped develop the understanding of the situation for many