Part One: The character that has interested me throughout the book so far has been Miss Sasaki. In the beginning, I developed a sort of respect for her because of how hard-working she was and how she assumed the role of care taker for her family when her mother was busy looking after her sick, infant brother. That outlook has changed slightly after the way she behaved when she was rescued. After escaping from the rubble, she was put in a makeshift lean to for cover since she was unable to get anywhere by herself due to her badly broken leg. Shortly after being taken there, Miss Sasaki is joined by two other injured people with injuries that in some ways out-weighed her own. Miss Sasaki came off as rude to me when put in this situation with other injured strangers. "Abandoned and helpless, under the crude lean-to in the courtyard of the tin factory, beside the woman who had lost a breast and the man whose face was scarcely a face any more, she suffered awfully that night from pain in her broken leg. She did not sleep at all; neither did she converse with her sleepless companions". This quote made her seem less than grateful that she had been saved and this caused me to think less of her as a character.
Part Two: Survivor's Guilt is defined as a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves having done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others have died. An article I found over the subject compared the psychological effects of the Hiroshima bombing to the effects of those who suffered during the Holocaust. The research addressed survivor's guild and also added psychic numbing which brought to mind how Father Kleinsorge commented on how the bombing of Hiroshima had changed him in a similar way. He thought to himself "how someone else's cut finger used to make him turn faint. Yet there in the park he was so benumbed" that he didn't even think twice about the gore surrounding him. The article pointed out that those that survived the Holocaust secluded themselves away from their family because they wouldn't discuss their experiences with them. I wonder if the same happened with those who survived the bombing. I am including an image that, to me, interpets one's feelings of survivor's guilt but is from the other side of the war: the American's.
I thought it was interesting Miss Sasaki's response to the situation when she was with two other injured civilians. Especially right after an attack like that, she should be thankful that she was okay. It made me think less of her character also.
ReplyDeleteMiss Sasaki has been an interesting character since the beginning of the book. She definitely seems like a dynamic character after she was injured and the bomb hit but who wouldn't be after an event as traumatic as wiping a whole city off the face of the earth. I think almost every survivor would have guilt when their neighbors, family, and friends have died. It is a huge burden to bear when you are one of the few survivors of a major crisis.
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