AK+NGUYEN

English: Hiroshima- John Hersey Characters in the book:

Long term effects of Agent Orange:;

The herbicide called Agent Orange was used during the Vietnam War to eliminate plant cover that could hide enemy forces. Soldiers called the substance Agent Orange because of orange stripes on the barrels. Many serious long-term health problems have been linked to this substance, not from the herbicide itself but from trace amounts of a highly toxic type of dioxin.

Cancer

 * 1) The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences lists numerous types of cancers with sufficient or suggestive evidence linking them to Agent Orange exposure. These include respiratory cancers, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, soft-tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin's disease and many others.

Additional Disorders

 * 1) Additionally, type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy and the skin disorder porphyria cutanea tarda are associated with exposure to Agent Orange.

Birth Defects

 * 1) Serious birth defects of children born to veterans and to the Vietnamese people have been linked to Agent Orange. Although there are many anecdotal reports of birth defects in Vietnam since the war, research findings are inconsistent, making the subject controversial. The IOM has listed spina bifida as a birth defect with suggestive evidence of an association with Agent Orange exposure to the parent.

Other Childhood Disorders

 * 1) According to the Vietnam Veterans of America, when compared to children of non-veterans in the National Birth Defect Registry, the children of Vietnam veterans have shown consistent increases in learning and attention disorders, skin disorders, allergies and asthma, immune system disorders, some childhood cancers, thyroid disorders and childhood diabetes.

Remaining Dioxin

 * 1) The Canadian environmental consulting firm the Hatfield Group has researched long-term environmental impacts of Agent Orange and found that sprayed areas do not contain measurable amounts of dioxin, but former military bases do have high levels of dioxin in the soil, making them "hot spots."

Environmental Impact

 * 1) Spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides destroyed a large part of the Vietnam ecosystem, including coastal mangrove forests and inland tropical forests. The National Academy of Sciences stated mangrove forests could take 100 years to recover.

Ms Toshinki Sasaki- A clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just turned her head to chat with the girl at the next desk before bomb Hiroshima was dropped Dr Masakazu Fujii, a physician, had just sat down to read the paper on the porch of his private hospital Mrs. Hatsuyo Kleinsorge, a tailor’s window, was watching a neighbor tearing down his house from her kitchen window Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest, lay on a cot in the mission house reading a Jesuit magazine Dr Terufum Sasaki, a young surgeon, walked along a hospital corridor with a blood specimen for a Wasserman test.

- Hersey’s narrative is limited by the emotional distance of his characters; he cannot share the psychological problems that victims may face unless they describe those problems to him. At the same time, we could also argue that those characters who do face severe mental problems in the aftermath of the explosion are given fairly short shrift in the book. Mr. Fukai, the secretary who presumably threw himself into the flames, is mentioned only briefly, although such a story has potential for enormous psychological impact. The same goes for Mrs. Kamai, the woman who walks around clutching her dead baby in her arms—Mr. Tanimoto turns his back on her, and we are spared any more discussion of her fate. Other possible reasons for the lack of psychological depth are the stoicism and pride of the Japanese people and Hiroshima survivors, who remain emotionally distant from the events. Toshio Nakamura is an interesting case. Hersey allows Toshio’s account to end the original book, using his school report as a kind of window into a child’s mind and perspective. Toshio’s account, however, is noteworthy for how undisturbed, but nonetheless disturbing, it is. Perhaps because we expect the characters to be more psychologically affected, the deadpan accounts are especially disconcerting. On the other hand, Hersey may have been unable to fully interview those people who were mentally and emotionally disturbed by the explosion, and that may account for the book’s lack of psychological depth.

Part of John Hersey’s goal in writing //Hiroshima// was to show that there was no unified political or national response to the bombing of Hiroshima, but that there was one definite effect on the people affected by it: they came together as a community. As Hersey states in Chapter Four, “One feeling they did seem to share, however, was a curious kind of elated community spirit. . . a pride in the way they and their fellow-survivors had stood up to a dreadful ordeal.” This community spirit pervades the book, most likely because Hersey chooses to emphasize it over other things. For example, very few of the situations Hersey describes revolve around families. Aside from the few mothers and children who are featured (the Nakamuras, the motherless Kataoka children, Mrs. Kamai and her dead baby), most of the people whom we encounter are on their own. The characters who have families do not live with them; Dr. Fujii’s wife, for example, lives in Osaka. However, we do read about people taking care of one another on the riverbank at Asano Park and in the East Parade Ground, providing water, food, and comfort as though they were family. Since the bomb destroyed real families and homes, the citizens of Hiroshima are forced to come together and make a new kind of family. Father Kleinsorge, whose birth family is presumably back in Germany, creates a family out of his companionship with his fellow priests and later, with Miss Sasaki, the Nakamuras, the Kataoka children and many other people he encounters in the period following the bombing.

Although the people of Hiroshima come together as a community in response to the bombing, as victims, they suffer alone. Many references throughout the book depict how the people have severe, hideous injuries but do not complain or cry out; they suffer silently. Hersey suggests that this is a uniquely Japanese characteristic—that Japanese individuals attach great importance to not disturbing the larger group and do not call attention to their own needs or pain. The book relates that thousands of people die all around, and yet no one expresses anger or calls for retribution. Father Kleinsorge, a foreigner, is especially amazed by this attitude in Chapter Two: “. . . the silence in the grove by the river, where hundreds of gruesomely wounded suffered together, was one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole existence.” We witness this attitude with Mr. Tanimoto, who is unharmed and runs through the city in search of his wife and child. As he passes the masses of injured people he apologizes to them for not suffering more himself. In the stories he shares later in Chapter Four, he cites a few people, including thirteen-year-old girls, who died with noble visions that they were sacrificed for their country, and were not concerned for themselves or bitter over their unlucky fate. This stoicism becomes a major source of pride for the Japanese people—they could be strong and supportive of their country and receive whatever hardship they were given with powerful silence.