Black Rain: Reader Response Essay, Research Paper

Black Rain: Reader Response

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 human spirit. It does accomplish what it set out to do, show

the effect on the losing side of war.