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Hiroshima
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As the article begins tension is immediately the mood put into place. Impending disaster is coming, everyday people have heard of the terrors of war from their fellow countrymen but have not experienced it themselves. Clear foreshadowing is shown as we are introduced to the lives of what seems to be everyday people living their lives, however, something is just not quite right such as with Tanimoto feeling as if something is off (paragraph 4). This all comes to a peak when it is realized something is off but this is only realized far too late. Blinding light, an atomic bomb dropped far away and it is felt for miles. Time and time again Hersey uses foreshadowing to show that danger is coming such as with the survivors themselves becoming suspicious a bomb is coming such as Dr. Fujii when he actually starts seeing less patients because he thinks Hiroshima will be a target and the patients will not be able to get away fast enough (paragraph 17). The survivors of the Hiroshima bombings survived only by chance, they were lucky, neighbors, family, friends did not survive but they did.
Siena wrote: "As the article begins tension is immediately the mood put into place. Impending disaster is coming, everyday people have heard of the terrors of war from their fellow countrymen but have not experi..."I definitely agree that tension is one of the main tones used by Hersey, especially within the first section of the article and as the article progresses. We know that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastating moments in world history, leaving over 100,000 Japanese citizens dead with many more severely wounded. However, the feeling of foreshadowing does not just extend to the text itself, but to us as readers. We know how serious these bombings were, yet the article begins by chronicling the lives of Japanese individuals from different backgrounds, as well as a German priest right before their lives were forever altered by the explosion (paragraph 1). As readers, we are anticipating that sense of dread and hopelessness when we read about these people simply because we know what the aftermath is.
Religion seems to come up a significant number of times throughout the article. Present throughout the article are Reverends and Fathers of the Christian faith which is significant as Christians have only been allowed in Japan since 1871 (Kuhn, 2015). This group of people would be likely to relate to the Americans as the Americans share a common faith however individual intricacies of belief push people apart nevertheless. One such religious person is Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Reverend who was able to help with his position of power (Hersey paragraph 29). He was a priest and with his morals he wanted to help others rather than himself. It is significant to note the number if Christian priests the article focused on as it seemed that during this time period during this time period Christian churches were somewhat limited by the government (OE, 1990). This goes back to Christianity being monotheistic which directly interferes with the idea that the emperor is supposed to be the son of a God.Reference Articles:
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallel...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42610404...
Notice the details he chooses to include about each person. Ask yourself why? What is the effect or intended effect? Also, look at the images used later on (more towards the middle). What hits you hardest, what image last after you’ve stopped reading?
Hersey chooses to include details that regard to how each person's lives have been affected by the perceived threat of an attack on Hiroshima; though, this is mostly at the beginning of the article. In addition, he includes the simplistic, innocuous tasks or actions that every would-be survivor was doing before the bomb struck the town. However, this is not to counteract the fear and (at that moment) possible paranoia that was inside of an average Japanese citizen's mind; rather, it is to show that their lives have not been normalized by this continuous and possibly growing threat, but they are slowly accepting it to be the norm in Japan, a country already rocked by the perils of World War II. Mr. Tanimoto is a man that is assisting others in creating air-raid shelters for their families (Paragraph 4). Yet, right before the bomb strikes, he is assisting another man, Mr. Matsuo, because the latter had asked if Mr. Tanimoto could assist in carrying out a daughter's possessions (Paragraph 3). The night before the atomic disaster, Mrs. Nakamura had taken her three children to a military area once she heard alerts that possible bombs (specifically, B-39s) would be dropped on the city (Paragraph 9). That morning, she made some food for her children, then watched her neighbor next door (Paragraph 11). Hersey is not including these details to show that these people are ignorant to what is going on around them; they are not drones who are mindlessly happy every second of the day. They are noticeably concerned for themselves and their families' safety, yet are attempting to not allow the fear to consume their minds by distracting themselves with the kind of tasks that they would perform on a normal day in Japan. The Japanese people are familiar with fear and paranoia regarding destruction they witnessed or became aware of the casualties and destruction either caused or suffered by Japan during the time of World War II. More than likely, they are aware that if they allow their minds to be consumed by fear of death or losing a loved one, they will become shells of themselves and become even more traumatized by the war than they already are. To avoid this, they know that they should learn to adapt to the art of acceptance and take any precautions that they feel is necessary to avoid succumbing to their fears and dilemmas. However, they should also not devote their entire minds and bodies to satisfy the desperate need to protect themselves; they should keep some semblance of normalcy in their lives in order to avoid themselves developing the mindset of paranoid citizens that have gone completely "stir-crazy", so to speak, whose only function is to save themselves and their families.
Dorothy wrote: "Siena wrote: "As the article begins tension is immediately the mood put into place. Impending disaster is coming, everyday people have heard of the terrors of war from their fellow countrymen but h..."I think that feeling in our bodies of uneasiness is caused from the repetition of the subtle droppings of foreshadowing. Over and over we hear about how other locations are effected. It is only a matter of time until Hiroshima is hit. Then Hersey hits us with intense imagery, a turning point if you will where all of the uneasiness washes over us all at once in a "oh god" gasp of horror as we hear the survivors experience when the bomb hit. The repetition, the over and over of different perspectives is horrifying to hear about. It humanizes to bombings, they happened to real people. Any one of those people if they were outside or if they had acted a second slower, could be dead. Their experiences, stories, lives- over in an instant. Even those who survived in the immediate did not have their their suffering placated. For example the Reverend Tanimoto saw fire everywhere due to the bomb (Hersey paragraph 30). It seems that that these fires were caused by thermal radiation (Effects of Nuclear Earth-Perpetrator and Other Weapons, 2005). This seemed to kill many of the initial survivor. Imagine surviving the initial bombing only to have death by fire, it is a sad pitiful death.
Reference Article: https://www.nap.edu/read/11282/chapter/8
Another reason of the inclusion of the details regarding the lives and impact that the bombing had on these people is to invoke a sense of empathy and sorrow for them. Obviously, this is established in order to show a sense of respect for the deceased and their loved ones, but the style in which Hersey chronicles the way in which these survivors suffered creates a strong sense of sympathy, and in a far-fetched way, resentment at the idea that such a powerful and deadly weapon could be used on a country with thousands of innocent citizens, many of them being young children who would either never be able to experience growing up, beginning a career and having a family of their own, or survive and yet have many health complications in the future. Though all of these survivors were adults with families of their own when the bomb struck Hiroshima, they all suffered severely from the bomb. They lost loved ones, their homes, or even were injured themselves. This was the case for Toshiko Sasaki; after the bomb had caused the ceiling of her office and eventually her entire office to crumble, a bookshelf landed on top of her and broke her left leg (Paragraph 30). The pain was so intense for her that she believed that her leg was "cut off below somewhere below the knee" (Paragraph 51). While they themselves did not become casualties in the bombing, they did suffer emotional strain of watching the most basic, and yet most important factors of their lives crumble around them, forcing them to begin rebuilding their lives from the ground up.
Siena wrote: "Religion seems to come up a significant number of times throughout the article. Present throughout the article are Reverends and Fathers of the Christian faith which is significant as Christians ha..."I definitely agree that the inclusion of references to religion is very common in the article; however, I think this is because of a desire to connect to an American audience. As you said, Siena, Americans typically share a common faith or they share the similarity in actively practicing their religion. However, I think this is more than just an appeal in the sense that it is a connection to an American audience. There is obviously a connection between American and Japanese individuals here, but why in this context? Why in a telling of one of the most destructive moments of World War II? I think this is done in order to compound the effect of the bombing. Imagine if a nuclear bomb was dropped over the United States in an effort to end a global war, killing hundreds of thousands of people, possibly even millions of people. Other countries may pity the U.S; partly from a moral standpoint, or possibly because of the similarities they share, such as economic stability or political structure. That is the emotion that I feel Hersey desires to spark, pity and sorrow. Why? Religion is a part of the culture in a country, and if someone read this article with no background knowledge of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they would be shocked at the sheer destruction and ruthlessness that the nuclear bomb had, but also have a sense of sadness. The obvious reason is because thousands of innocent Japanese citizens, of which many were young children, lost their lives or developed incurable health conditions, but also because there is a subtle connection between a Japanese victim and a reader; that connection being either a shared religion or a similarity in practicing a religion.
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I want to add onto that last part you were talking about, how they only survived by chance and that friends, neighbors, and family did not. I believe the author chose to include the immense amounts of background information about the survivors for this reason. Hershey really wanted to emphasize that the bombing of Hiroshima was going to impact these survivors for the rest of their lives. Buildings and cities can be rebuilt but the innocent people lost cannot be brought back. Those who survived lost most of the people they knew to the atomic bomb.
Siena wrote: "As the article begins tension is immediately the mood put into place. Impending disaster is coming, everyday people have heard of the terrors of war from their fellow countrymen but have not experi..."I agree with this statement, that tension is set at the very beginning. Hersey shows this by demonstrating how not a single person was expecting the bombs. As Mrs. Sasaki was at her desk, "Dr. Masakazu Fujii was settling down cross-legged to read the Osaka Asahi on the front porch of his hospital...Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura...stood by the window of her kitchen...Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest of the Society of Jesus, reclined in his underwear...(Hersey p. 1)" These descriptions are extremely unsettling because we know in the present that many peoples lives were negatively altered as a result of the bombs that they didn't even expect to hit Japan. Once the bomb hit, panic immediately rose. "Such clouds of dust had risen that there was a sort of twilight around." Words like "risen" and "twilight" are often associated with fear, and Hersey does a good job with his word choice to describe the tension and fear felt throughout Hiroshima that day.
"As Mrs. Nakamura stood watching her neighbor, everything flashed whiter than any white she had seen before...Timbers landed around her as she landed, and a shower of tiles pommeled her; everything became dark, for she was buried...saw her youngest--Myeko, the five-year-old,--buried up to her breast and unable to move(paragraphs 4 and 5)." The color contrast of light and dark, as well as the desperation portrayed through Mrs. Nakamura's five-year-old Myeko being buried, Hersey portrays how surreal and horrifying the bombs were, because atomic bombs were a new invention, and most of the world had no idea of their impact until the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"Dr. Fujii barely had time to think he was dying before he realized that he was alive, squeezed tightly by two long timbers in a V across his chest...The remains of his hospital were all around him in a mad assortment of splintered lumber and materials for the relief of pain(p. 17)." It is impossible to imagine how hopeless Dr. Fujii felt when he saw the hospital in ruins. Hersey emphasizes that by calling the hospital where Dr. Fujii worked "his[Dr. Fujii's] hospital." The purpose of making the hospital belong to Dr. Fujii was to show the reader the complexity of his life, and how many hours he dedicated to serving others as a doctor, and now he's close to his own death. It's heartbreaking.
Kiera wrote: ""Dr. Fujii barely had time to think he was dying before he realized that he was alive, squeezed tightly by two long timbers in a V across his chest...The remains of his hospital were all around him..."You can definitely sense the desperation and sorrow running through Dr. Fuiji's mind as he looks at the debris around him, which is, sadly, the remains of his hospital. It's even more tragic when you remember that just a few minutes prior, he was calmly reading the newspaper (Paragraph 18). The newspaper wasn't local either, it was from the town where his wife and one of his sons were temporarily staying if an atomic bomb did ever strike, which was the town of Osaka (Paragraph 17). His life changed so quickly; from merely reading a newspaper to watching one of the factors that made him who he was crumble before him in an instant.
Dorothy wrote: "Siena wrote: "Religion seems to come up a significant number of times throughout the article. Present throughout the article are Reverends and Fathers of the Christian faith which is significant as..."Another reason religion may be so prominent throughout the article, especially the Christian faith, may be because the article is filled with anecdotes from priests from the World War II era. Historically this war is centered around religion. Japan allied themselves with Germany and Italy who were notorious for hating faiths they did not agree with ("Christianity in Nazi Germany"). The Holocaust, most prominently, and tragically occurred due to religion and race. When an American (the intended audience for the article due to the language it was written in and the newspaper it was published in) reads this article set in World War II it is inevitable for them to think of the Holocaust. Continuing with the Holocaust the mind drifts to other mass atrocities that occurred during this war such as the Armenian Genocide, ethnic cleansing, and most similarly to the tragedy that was Hiroshima, the firebombing. Perhaps I am completely digressing however in the context of World War II, I believe religion is equivalent to calamity. Associating with a religion hurt millions upon millions of people.
Reference Article: https://spartacus-educational.com/GER...
Siena wrote: "Dorothy wrote: "Siena wrote: "Religion seems to come up a significant number of times throughout the article. Present throughout the article are Reverends and Fathers of the Christian faith which i..."There has been Western influence present in Japan since the beginning odf the nineteenth century. After a period of isolationist policies, Japan opened its ports to the United States, and by extent the Western world, after the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. Japan rapidly industrialized during a period known as the Meiji Restoration (1868-1919) and became a global power after fighting in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. As a result of contact with the United States, Western religion soon impacted the Japanese way of life as Japan became more integrated with the global economy.
Reference article:http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_po...
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https://www.npr.org/2015/08/06/429433...
Kiera wrote: ""Dr. Fujii barely had time to think he was dying before he realized that he was alive, squeezed tightly by two long timbers in a V across his chest...The remains of his hospital were all around him..."The complexity of life... Thinking about a preventable tragedy, or well, a forced tragedy like the events of Hiroshima truly makes one think about survival. Humans were not the only ones trying to survive the atomic bombings, the shadows of dogs, cats, and other animal wake of the bombings. However when you mentioned the complexities of life I was reminded of a different kind of life... plant life. I want to know what happened to plants like the one that was near to Toshiko Sasaki only 1600 from the center of the bomb (Hersey paragraph 27). According to plant geneticist, Edward J. Klekowski, Jr., due to radiation plants actually received genetic mutations due to the bombings (Ecklholm, 1985).
Reference Article: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/09/us....
Although the populace is stuck in the leftover of the bomb aftermath with little more then their underclothes there is still a sense of community(Hersey paragraph 38). People are desperate there is fire, there is struggle however they are still willing to help one another. Thus, there is hope. Hope that there will be recovery from the despair of the bombings. Of course there is a looming sense of anxiety that another bombing will occur however they array of people are able to pick themselves up and try to survive to the next day.
SM to remember: posts should be short (250 characters).
Read this excerpt: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/19...
Identify the theme, then discuss the choices Hersey makes throughout which aid him in achieving his purpose.
Be sure to make this thread complete and well done - to make up for the fact that other groups read, on average, 200 more pages (at a higher level). Go far above expectations here.