Reader A Cultural View Of Japan example essay topic

Black Rain The novel, Black Rain, is a first hand recall of the events of a man's life during the bombing of Hiroshima. The main character, Shigematsu Shizuma, is concerned that his niece, Yasuko, will be unable to marry because prospective husbands are scared off due to the fact that she was near the bombing and that her or her children will suffer the effects of this radiation sickness that had already affected so many. In his quest to find a husband for his niece he decides to rewrite his journal of the bombing of Hiroshima. It is his copying of this journal that takes the reader though the treacherous events of the bombing and the effects on his and others' lives.

Mr. Shizuma writes of every detail of the bombing. He describes the bombs blinding white light and the mushroom cloud that followed and he also describes the people. He tells of the strange burns on people's bodies. He tells of family's journey back into the city of Hiroshima to try to find lost loved ones. And he tells of the survivors's t ruggles as well, from the radiation sickness to the small rations of rice and beans distributed to the people. He also seems very inquisitive about what kind of bomb fell on the city.

The journal ends with the surrender of Japan and the book ends with his niece becoming very ill with the radiation sickness. This novel is like many other Japanese stories in that it is not a very happy book. There is no happy ending and the novel is filled with many gruesome descriptions of corpses much like the story Rashomon. The book gives the reader a front seat view into the lives of the people of Hiroshima.

It also, like the story In a Grove, gives multiple first hand views of the bombing itself. You are given a visual picture as Mr. Shizuma describes in detail the destroyed city and the people of Hiroshima as they put up signs on their yard to mark where their house once sat. They described how the families of the victims had no real way of communicating with loved ones unless they just came and walked around looked for them. Like the movie Ran, symbolism is very prevalent in this book. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is the way the author describes that the only thing that survived were the eels who were seen swimming up the river a day before the surrender was given. I believe that this was a symbol of rebirth that Japan would undergo.

I felt like I was one of the ones in the city of Hiroshima while reading this book. You could easily imagine the hopeless feelings of the people of Japan as doctors came to try and treat a disease that they had never seen before and were leery of even trying to treat if for fear of catching it themselves. You can easily see the paranoia as "air raids" were yelled out again and again as people put on their air raid caps and ran for cover. When I think of war I think of a battle fought far off in a foreign land.

We feel protected because we are in our own country. These people probably felt the same thing until the bombing. I can't imagine the horror of having not only your house, but also having your entire hometown destroyed in the blink of an eye. The destruction of the city was only the initial damage done.

The sickness that affected the people reminded them for many years to come of the effects the bombing would continue to have on their lives. When the book ends, you are really given dose of the fear of the people as they ponder what was going to happen to them at the end of the war. You can feel the fear of the people as they try to imagine the things that are going to happen as they are taken over by another country. They feared that their culture was about to be taken away from them.

The author of this book gives a very accurate unbiased view of the people of Hiroshima. He does not bash the US for their actions as this is war and he understands that there will be casualties. The only time he really questions the US is when he writes that if only they would have waited a little while longer Japan would have surrendered because they were internally falling apart. The author chooses to give the reader a first hand account of the bombing events.

This allows the reader to not only see what is going on but to also feel the emotions of the people as they try to continue on with some form of life as they wait helplessly. You can feel the disappointment and hunger of the people as the government keeps reducing the size of their rations along with their hopes. You feel as thought that these people are not really part of the war, they are just innocent bystanders that that become another casualty of war. The cultural element is missing from this book. I try to imagine Americans in the same situation and not a whole in my mind changes. The people of Hiroshima are only concerned with survival.

They are not concerned with decorating their house or cooking good food because they have lost their houses and they have very little food. The author did not intend to give the reader a cultural view of Japan. I believe the author intended to give an unbiased, plain truth account of the actual events of Hiroshima and allow the reader to form his / her own opinion. This book was not a book I really enjoyed reading. However the book was really well written and this probably accounts for my dislike of it. As the author painstakingly describes the sufferings of the people, I found myself wanting to skip pages because, being an American, I can only feel a little bit of guilt.

We are the only nation to have ever dropped an atomic bomb on another country and after reading this book, I hope another is never dropped.