John Hersey's Hiroshima Essay

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.

Due to the staggering loss of buildings after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, countless were left homeless and starving. Sueko Hada, though reluctant to talk about her ordeal in Hiroshima, opened up during an interview stating, “I had nowhere to go. A soldier took pity on me, gave me some money and told me to take the train to his grandmother's house. But on the train a woman stole all my belongings. Then someone else offered to take me to my elementary school.”[ix] After the atomic bomb wiped out many of the buildings and houses, many who were lucky enough to survive the blast, struggled with the difficulty to live because they were lacking houses and the resources necessary to carry on. Many survivors such as Hada had nowhere to go; circumstances were especially dire if one was the sole survivor within the family, making one have to suffer the hardships in isolation, just as in Hada’s situation. Along with having a

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.

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

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

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.

“We have to protect our Earth, so our children and grandchildren will never suffer like that,’ she said. And she looked ahead. ‘Maybe nuclear weapons won’t be abolished while I’m alive,’ she said. ‘But I will never give up.” (Hanley, NBC News). August 6, 1945 at 8:16 in the morning, the United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb on thousands of unsuspecting people in Hiroshima, Japan. Not only did this catastrophic event kill thousands of civilians, but it also resulted in other nations obtaining and learning how to create these deadly weapons, weapons that we still have today. In the book Hiroshima by John Hersey he gives readers a new look at that day, through the eyes of six victims who survived the horrific attack on Hiroshima, he shows how the entire city of Hiroshima suffered, and were left alone to fend for themselves.The book Hiroshima by John Hersey, sheds light on the immense dangers of nuclear warfare, and the government's responsibility for its people, affected by a war they aren’t fighting in.

On August 6th 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima by the American army. Author John Hersey document the lives of six survivors before, during, and after the detonation of the bomb. These six survivors were Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Mrs. Hatsune Nakamura, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, Miss Toshiko Sasaki and Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge. Mr. Tanimoto, a

Although WW II ended over 50 years ago there is still much discussion as to the events which ended the War in the Pacific. The primary event which historians attribute to this end are the use of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although the bombing of these cities did force the Japanese to surrender, many people today ask "Was the use of the atomic bomb necessary to end the war?" and more importantly "Why was the decision to use the bomb made?" Ronald Takaki examines these questions in his book Hiroshima.

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.

Not wanting to let go of her expired infant Mrs. Kamai was devastated by the loss of her daughter. Two girls lost their family and Mrs. Kamai lost her baby, due to the bomb children lost their parents and parents lost their infants.

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.

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.

-Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.