Untitled Essay, Research Paper

READER RESPONSE FOR:

BLACK RAIN

by

Masuji Ibuse

The main character in the novel is in some ways like myself. Mr. Shizuma

is a person that is intrigued by

many things and likes to see what reaction people have from any action.

Throughout the novel he feels the

need to go to different parts of the city and surrounding communities in

order to see the effects of the

unknown bomb. Mr. Shizuma was not only interested in what happened to the

people of the community

but he was also interested in finding out what the weapon used was called

and made out of. There were

different names given to the bomb throughout the book and he sums up the

names in one paragraph,

The name of the bomb had already undergone a number of changes, from the

initial

“new weapon” through “new-type bomb,” “secret

weapon,” “special new-type bomb,” to

“special high-capacity bomb.” That day, I learned for the first

time to call it an “atomic

bomb.” (Black Rain 282)

The importance of the name of the bomb may seem ineffectual, but he seems

to dwell on finding out what

caused this type of destruction. Something else that Mr. Shizuma wants to

do is remember every little

detail about what happens to everything from what angle the house was on

after the bomb to what his wife

cooked for dinner with the food rationing. He even likes to write how people

cured themselves of radiation

sickness and what the burns and other injuries look and act like. These things

are like myself in the fact

that he does not like to forget what things are like, wants to see first

hand what the effects are, and is very

interested in finding information about new things that he has never seen

before. He also likes to help

people greatly such as his constant wanderings looking for coal for his

community. If you were depended

on would you help your community? I think so.The theme that is very meaningful to me is that war hurts two different parts

of a country. The first is the

military, which was not really talked about, and then there is the civilians.

The civilians must ration food

so that the military can eat, and then they must also suffer because the

bomb that was dropped was not

meant for any military base but to destroy and kill a city. The theme is

clear in meaning that it hurts the

civilians much more than it hurts the military and that war is very, very

cruel. The people that were

rationing had very little to eat and that amount became smaller as the war

continued. People were forced

to grow carp in small, and search for mussels in ponds in order to get any

type of meat. By the end of the

war there were no mussels left in any of the many streams and there were

also no fish in any of the ponds.

The only thing that survived were the eels who were seen swimming up the

river a day before the

surrender was given. This was a sign of rebirth. It only took a year after

the Hiroshima bombing for the

surrender and during that time the government did not help any of the people

that really were hurt by the

war, the civilians. It was strange that the people felt any remorse at all

for losing the war when the

government that they were supposed to believe in left them homeless and without

any food. Innocent,

unarmed people killed and mangled by a weapon that could kill the entire

planet. For what purpose was

the bomb dropped? Mr. Shizuma made many remarks about how if the opposition

would have only waited

a while longer they would not have had to drop the bomb because the country

was internally falling apart.

This seems to me that the dropping of the bomb was nothing but a science

experiment to the ‘opposition’.

That is the hidden theme to this novel.The only type of person that could possibly read this book is a person that

is very open minded to other

ideas. To most people from the United States the bomb was necessary in order

to stop the war. In the eyes

of the Japanese the bomb was not needed to stop the war. Which side is true?

The answer is both sides. To

have an open mind and to be able to accept new ideas is crucial when you

look at people from a different

type of background and way of thinking. To read this novel you must also

have a pretty solid stomach

because there are many detailed entries about wounds and the way that the

skin starts to melt right off the

living body. The whole story is told from the eyes and thoughts of the main

character Mr. Shizuma is

different than any first hand account that I have ever read and a reader

must be willing to get into that

character in order to get the message, feelings, and pictures that Mr. Shizuma

is trying to put forth. The

novel is written extremely clear but one of the problems is that it gets

slow every once in a while if Mr.

Shizuma gets something into his mind so he decides to get it done. The pond

that his friend is growing

carp in is traveled to what seems to be about a thousand times. What is good

about the many travels to

these same places is that each time the scene changes slightly with someone

becoming sick or the carp

growing. What a person needs to read this book is careful thought because

of the slight changes and also a

map seems to grow inside your head of the different places that he goes to.

These places are described in

so much detail that it does not take very much imagination to see what is

going on and what he is seeing.The title has a lot to do with the book because the title is how the whole

thing started, with Mr. Shizuma’s

daughter coming home with black spots on her skin where the black rain had

hit her. It could not be

washed off and it burnt through clothing. The ending to the novel was

satisfactory because the end of the

war was a good place to end the novel. The only problem that I can see with

this type of ending is that the

reader wants to know what has happened to the community after a few years

but what the writer is trying

to say is very clear and enforced with people crying because they lost the

war. The crying was not only

because the war was lost but also for the people that died, or are dyeing,

in the community. Also the

crying was also from fear of what was going to happen to them now that another

country had control of

them. The men mostly feared that they were going to be castrated but they

knew that the country would

never be the same but they would be able to eat. The eels that were viewed

in the river were still in the

larvae stage and they were swimming upriver. This gives the man in the story

hope that things will be all

right and that they have the power to build a new community and help his

family deal with the sickness

that his daughter has. The overall meaning of the novel is that war makes

things hard for the people that

have to stay at home and support their soldiers. The heart of any country

is with the general population

and when that general population was hit with something unknown it did not

only shock the rest of the

country but it made the country wonder if they were strong enough. People

will pull through for

themselves and family before they think about what is going to happen to

the way that they live. This

novel shows the power and curiosity of the hu