Hiroshima Essay, Research Paper

Section I

Hiroshima is a factual account about the day the United States government dropped the

first atom bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The author, John Hersey, interviewed

six survivors and reported their stories in a factual but interesting fashion. He gives a brief

description of each person and tells of his or her daily activities both before and after the

explosion. His descriptions of people and events give the reader a feeling of actually being

at the scene. He intensifies each character’s need to survive. The sense of survival is

deeply rooted in the hearts of most people.

Section II

One of the survivors, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, is described as a tailor’s widow, who stood

by the window of her kitchen, watching a neighbor tearing down his house because it lay

in the path of an air-raid-defense fire lane. I was very impressed by Mrs. Nakamura and

her determination to survive and to help her children survive. After the bomb exploded

she found herself being thrown into the next room and buried under debris, but the cries of

her youngest child Myeko made her break free to rescue her children. After struggling

through debris and making a path, she found all three of her children and took them

outside. However, they had nothing on but underwear. Even though it was summer she

feared that the children might catch cold. She went back into the house and retrieved

clothing and, oddly enough, overcoats. She also found her only means of income, a

sewing machine, which she threw into a water tank. Mrs. Nakamura’s sense of survival

saved her life and the lives of her three children. Even though her rationality was blurred

at times, her desire to survive pushed her beyond her limits.

The “Testimony of Toshiko Saeki” tells of a young woman’s struggle to find her family

after the bomb was dropped. The woman’s name is Toshiko Saeki ,who, at the time of the

bombing, was with her children at her parents’ home, which was far away from Hiroshima.

She saw a flash of light then felt heat surrounding her body. She then heard a loud noise

and saw windows and doors being blown away into the air. When she realized what had

happened her first instinct was to go to Hiroshima to find the rest of her

family. On her way she saw a naked man holding a piece of iron over his head. She was

embarrassed and turned her back on him. “The man was passing by me, then, I don’t

know why, but I ran after him and I asked him to stop for a moment. I asked him, “Which

part of Hiroshima was attacked?” Then the man put down the piece of iron and he started

at me. He said, “You’re Toshiko, aren’t you?” He said, “Toshiko!”"(Saeki 1). Toshiko

couldn’t tell who he was until he said, “It’s me! It’s me, Toshiko! You can’t tell?”(Saeki 1).

She then realized it was one of her brothers, the second eldest. Toshiko searched for her

mother from August 6th through August 15th, only missing a few days because of air-raid

warnings. She could not find her. However, her brother found her mother’s

Bibliography

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