Literary Analysis Of Julia Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

He uses imagery when he says, "Then worms shall try that long-preserved virginity," he creates an image of worms going into her body once she is dead in another effort to change her mind. By doing this he is asking her whether she would rather loose her virginity to him while she's alive or to worms once she is dead. He uses imagery again when he says, "While the youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew," by saying this he creates the image of young skin, naturally glowing in the light. This is another way of complementing her in order to make his argument more convincing. Another way he makes his argument more convincing is through

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America felt exposed as potential dangers, now realized, ominously lurked along the home front. False reports of Japanese espionage spread rapidly fueling hostility, fear, and racial prejudice. In an Executive Order signed by president Roosevelt, America responded, removing Japanese-Americans from their homes and shackling them within internment camps. Relocation was not obligatory but mandatory. Based on the experiences of close family members, Julie Otsuka, in her novel entitled When the Emperor was Divine, captures the transition of a nameless Japanese-American family from normalized citizens to ostracized foreigners. Oasis to desert, her vivid imagery nuances a deeper sense of meaning

Most stories have very similar plots, character actions and themes. Stories become unique by having different character actions and responses. In the short stories of “A Retrieved Reformation” and “Thank You M’am”, the similarities and differences between the two stories influence the direction of the plots, character actions, and theme while making the characters into better people. The plot of the two stories help change the characters into better people.

On the way, he picked up two books with settings based in japan. He gave me my first copy of Memoirs of a Geisha. As I read the story, I was very confused with some of the words used and concepts, which intrigued me since that had never happened to me before. I did not know where I put the book after that. Now, when I had to choose a book to write about, I saw the same novel in my IB1 Literature classroom. At once, I remembered how the story had intrigued me and how the meaning had been lost to me. I chose this book because it is challenging and intriguing. My favorite source for this essay is the book itself, with the articles coming at a close second.

In her novel When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka explores the relationship between instability and isolation. When isolated for a period of time, individuals separate themselves from each other and vise versa. In the story, the family detach themselves from one another as they undergo a duration of mental strain. As the family withdraws from each other, they begin to withdraw from themselves. Otsuka characterizes the family’s transforming personalities to portray that when one is alienated by society, the individual becomes mentally unstable which leads to the isolation of oneself from himself or herself and their family.

Julie Otsuka’s novel When the Emperor was Divine leads the reader through the journey of one family that represents many as they are placed in an internment camp for the crime of being Japanese. Otsuka brings to light the persecution of Japanese-Americans through her use of symbols prominent throughout the book. Some of the most important being the symbol of stains, their family dog, and horses. Each has a double-meaning pointing towards the theme of widespread racism. Racism that led many Japanese-Americans into believing that they were guilty.

War can be loud and visible or quiet and remote. It affects the individual and entire societies, the soldier, and the civilian. Both U.S. prisoners of war in Japan and Japanese-American citizens in the United States during WWII undergo efforts to make them “invisible.” Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken hero, Louie Zamperini, like so many other POWs, is imprisoned, beaten, and denied basic human rights in POW camps throughout Japan. Miné Okubo, a U.S. citizen by birth, is removed from society and interned in a “protective custody” camp for Japanese-American citizens. She is one of the many Japanese-Americans who were interned for the duration of the war. Louie Zamperini, as a POW in Japan, and Miné Okubo, as a Japanese-American Internee both experience efforts to make them “invisible” through dehumanization and isolation in the camps of WWII, and both resist these efforts.

Another example of imagery in the story is when the author used it to describe Emily when she ask for poison to the druggist.“still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyes ockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keepers face ought to look”. The author makes emphasis in Emily’s face and eyes meaning that she is lost in her own world and foreshadows that Emily would use the poison for something wrong.

In When the Emperor was Divine, the author, Julie Otsuka, uses her choice of narrator to represent the overall image of Japanese Americans throughout the war. At the beginning of the first chapter, the narrator is the mother who is very proper and clearly trying to fit in. This is demonstrative of how Japanese Americans were treated like any other citizen before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After the attack, the Japanese Americans became isolated and hated and were forced to leave their homes. When the mother receives an evacuation notice, she has to pack up and hide all of her family's possessions. The family has an old dog and she decides that she has no choice but to kill it. The Americans saw anyone with Japanese heritage as brutes who have no compassion and it is this belief that causes the mother to have to commit and brutal action. By using the mother as the first narrator, Otsuka depicts the change of the overall opinion of the Japanese Americans.

The Japanese-American author, Julie Otsuka, wrote the book When the Emperor was Divine. She shares her relative and all Japanese Americans life story while suffering during World War II, in internment camps. She shares with us how her family lived before, during, and after the war. She also shares how the government took away six years of Japanese-American lives, falsely accusing them of helping the enemy. She explains in great detail their lives during the internment camp, the barbed wired fences, the armed guards, and the harsh temperatures. When they returned home from the war they did not know what to believe anymore. Either the Americans, which imprisoned them falsely, or the emperor who they have been told constantly not to believe, for the past six years imprisoned. Japanese-Americans endured a great setback, because of what they experienced being locked away by their own government.

The United States of America a nation known for allowing freedom, equality, justice, and most of all a chance for immigrants to attain the American dream. However, that “America” was hardly recognizable during the 1940’s when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering 120,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated to internment camps. As for the aftermath, little is known beyond the historical documents and stories from those affected. Through John Okada’s novel, No-No Boy, a closer picture of the aftermath of the internment is shown through the events of the protagonist, Ichiro. It provides a more human perspective that is filled with emotions and connections that are unattainable from an ordinary historical document.

There are more significant symbols in the novel such as The Boy. The Man and Boy fight to survive many hardships, but through the darkness there is light, The Boy. He is very mature and cares for every stray person they pass. One person he cares for is a man named Ely, an old man with nothing but the clothes on his back, until he meets The Boy and his father." 'You should thank him you know, I wouldn’t have given you anything' "(McCarthy 173). The Boy wants everyone to survive and is willing to share his supplies even if it means he won`t have all the things he needs to live.

The imagery in this book is pretty miraculous. The majority of this book is built on the feeling the main character, Kenna, has through the book, the sights, sounds and smells she gets to experience. You can see and feel alongside Kenna as the author drags her through hell, and heaven, because of the vivid imagery the author uses. Some of the best imagery comes when the main character syphons souls, or as the book would have it, “culls” the souls. During one particular event in the book Kenna was put in a bind when she had to help her sister, who was withering away again after the first time she healed her with the souls she had culled from the surrounding area. Kenna looked for something to cull to heal her sister until she saw a stag. Lunging

The reason for this reflection is to review what has happened in a deeper level than just summarizing what has happened over the course of this project. During the weeks learned some things, not just from the book that I was reading, but also from participating in a group. The lessons I learned led to my group being successful in the few goals that were created. All of the goals were met in different ways whether it would be just finishing the book or us getting up in front of the whole class to present the google slides that we created.

1.On page 53 it the book describes Eva’s best friends eyes as blue as the sky. During the Hitler salute on page 65 Eva described how everyone stood like statues. On page 27 she meets a girl with hair looked like shimmering gold in the sunlight. Page 133 tears rolled down her cheeks like a dam beginning to cave in. Page 149 The language I’d thought I lost forever shimmered, alive and real, in front of me. The author uses imagery several times throughout the book in order to give the reader better understanding and be able to imagine what is happening in the book.