Nam's The Boat: Life In Vietnam

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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 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.

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.

Before John Hersey’s novel, Hiroshima, Americans viewed Japanese as cruel and heartless people. This warped perspective caused the majority of American citizens to feel complacent about the use of the atomic bomb against civilians. Americans, in many ways, were blinded by their own ignorance to notice the severity of the destruction suffered by not only the city of Hiroshima but, more importantly, the people who lived there. The six testimonies in Hiroshima illustrate the strength and optimistic attitude of the Japanese people. In this essay, I will discuss the feelings towards the ethics surrounding the use of the atomic bomb, next I will look at two testimonies and how their lives

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

John Hersey’s Hiroshima takes place in Hiroshima Japan, surrounding areas included, from when the bomb went off on August 6th, 1945 to the middle of the 1880’s. This particular setting and time had a certain impact and influence on the way the people who survived this tragedy had dealt with it.

The most significant theme in John Hersey’s book “Hiroshima” are the long- term effects of war, confusion about what happened, long term mental and physical scars, short term mental and physical scars, and people being killed.

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

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.

“Hiroshima”, written by author John Hersey is based on the real life events that occurred on August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan. During these final stages of World War II, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Hersey captures the experience of six survivors, and the events of that day. Nearly four decades later he travels back to the city in search of the survivors and tells of their present lives, post-war. The purpose of the novel was to connect others with their humanity and to recognize the devastation faced by ordinary people.