...In John Hersey’s, Hiroshima, he tells the story of six individual inhabitants who lived through the greatest single manmade disaster in history, the bombing of Hiroshima. Hersey goes on to explain what each of the six individuals was doing, from their daily lives to the very moment the bomb drops, and even 40 years later. Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto is one of the six individuals that Hiroshima focuses on. On the morning of August 6, 1945, Rev. Tanimoto was moving a tansu to the house of Mr. Matsui, a rayon manufacturer, in the suburbs for safe keeping due to the air-raid warnings that week. While Tanimoto and his friend were on that errand, the air-raid siren went off. Then as the morning continued, they saw a bright flash of light traveling east to west. He instantly knew something bad...
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...Mr. Goodfellow AP World History 10 9-14-12 Hiroshima Assignment #1 Miracle, when used in biblical context, is an "event in the external world brought about by the will of God" or "an occurrence that cannot be explained by the senses". When focusing on the Biblical interpretation of the word "miracle", it is clear that the Hiroshima survivors truly went through an extraordinary, remarkable experience. The chances of these people surviving were so slim, it was truly a work of God. There lives were sparred for a higher purpose. Only eight blocks away from where the bomb had dropped, one home was left in good condition. The church that had been right beside it was completely destroyed, almost no remains. Inside the home were eight German Jesuit missionaries who were constantly praying and spreading the word of God to the Japanese people. They meant no harm and were there on a peaceful mission. After the bomb went off, these men survived with only minor injuries. They continued to live with a strong faith in God. There survival was truly a work of God. Besides those eight German Jesuit Missionaries, Father Wilhem Kleinsorge, Dr. Saski, and Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto all went through experiences that just can not be explained by the senses, there survival truly was a miracle. One survivor, Dr Sasaki was a surgeon in the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima. After the bomb went off, he was the only ...
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...Hope can band all people together to accomplish great or nearly impossible things. Humans have been around for thousands and millions of years and we have been through painful and tough times. But were still here millions and millions of years later. Its hope that saves us, its hope that makes us who we are. In the book Hiroshima by John Hersey Father Kleinsorge states “please god help me to cross safely…said father Kleinsorge as he aged a few more strokes and carried the wounded across his back. “ (Hersey 75) This shows that Father Kleinsorge knows that there is little hope for those heavily injured but proceeds with carrying them. Even though there is little chance that everyone one will survive they watch out for one another and prosper...
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...Shalonda Beal Book Review “My review of Hiroshima by John Hershey is as follow.” The plot is about how six people lives are affected when Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. Their lives are being followed day by day. They try to go back to their normal lives after the bomb dropped but they can not because they will always have in their mind the day that the bomb hit and memories of what they saw and what they had to go through just to recover. They wanted to help a lot of other people who were trapped under houses but they could not because after the fire started to spread rapidly they only could look out for themselves or die trying to help them. The main characters are “Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor’s widow, Dr. Masakaza Fujii, a physician at his private hospital, Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young member of the surgical staff of the city’s large, modern Red Cross Hospital, and Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest of the Society of Jesus.” Thousands of people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors. They wondered why they lived through their wounds when so many others died. They lived so many lives and saw more deaths and suffering than they ever thought they would see. Even though they lived they went through a great deal of suffering and sometimes...
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...Suffering in Hiroshima United States President Herbert Hoover voiced “the use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts [his] soul,” accurately depicting the sentiment of countless Japanese civilians “at exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the movement when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima” (Hersey 1). Hiroshima, by John Hersey, recounts the tales of six individuals who survived from history’s first atomic bombing. Hersey vividly, and even graphically, illustrates the magnitude of a nuclear attack’s impact not only as massive physical and structural destructions, but also as severe emotional and psychological devastations, too. There are two primary ways in which he depicts the peoples’ sufferings: short-term and long-term effects....
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...Hiroshima: A Noiseless Flash The first chapter focuses on the lives of a few people just before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The author John Hersey describes you different point of views of Mr. Tanimoto, Mrs. Nakamura, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Father Wilheim Kleinsorge, Dr Terafumi Sanaki, and Miss Toshiko Sasaki leading up to the day of the bombing and their experience seconds after the bomb dropped. The blast was so powerful that, even though these people were mostly further than 1500 yards from it, it made the fly out into the air. So this chapter it’s mainly to give the reader an idea of whom these people were, innocent good people that did nothing wrong. It was just another regular day in between a war. Many of them even mention already...
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...Everybody already knew the facts and the statistics and the devastating outcome of August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. But nobody understood or was able to establish some palpable sense of how horrific those moments leading up to the bombing was. In Hiroshima, or at least in the first chapter of John Hersey’s “journalistic masterpiece,” a human face is given to any speculation of what transpired that tragic morning. The first chapter is told through the memories of six survivors: Miss Toshiko Sasaki, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, and the Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto. Hersey grants readers the ability to empathize—albeit superficially—with the victims by giving us an account through the perspectives of the actual people who lived through the event. Though I can understand how one can interpret Hersey’s objective tone to be too dry and journalistic, I think the way he masterfully recounts each survivor’s story “makes up” for what may be perceived as indifference. Hersey deftly weaves their poignant narratives through the intimate and meticulous details of that day’s events for each person. In his storytelling, there is a tangible patience as he is intent on the reader absorbing every single action made and thought had by the person being written about and every single feature of the setting the person was in. He depicts the paranoid culture and the day-to-day...
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...Trung Pham Professor John D. Kearney History 1302 16 July 2014 Exam One Writing Assignment While reading Hiroshima by John Hersey, Chapter Two: The Fire, stood of particular interest to me and later became what I regarded to be the most significant chapter of the entire novel. It vividly encaptures the absolute terror the people of Hiroshima faced in the wake of the explosion. From the viewpoints of six survivors, I was able to imagine just how devastating the force of the atomic bomb could be. The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, had noticed that “not just a patch of Koi, as he had expected, but as much of Hiroshima as he could see through the clouded air was giving off a thick, dreadful miasma” (Hersey 18). Fearful for his family and church, he ran into the city amidst burning houses and charred trees as thousands were fleeing, desperate to find them. At the same time, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor’s widow, having just pulled herself out of the ruins of her own house, struggled to free her youngest daughter Myeko, who was “buried breast-deep and unable to move” (Hersey 18). The third survivor, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, S.J., a German priest, gathered whatever he could and hurried to reunite with the other members of his mission house, many of who were injured and required immediate medical attention (Hersey 21). The fourth, a physician by the name of Masakazu Fujii, was trapped between wooden beams above the...
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...The book’s title is Hiroshima, it was written by a man named John Hersey about a year after the bomb. At first the novel was published in four parts in the New Yorker and then was put all together into one and sold in bookstores everywhere where it got popular among everyone. John Hersey wrote about six survivors who lived through the atom bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. The book starts out by telling the reader about the atom bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Hersey tells the number of casualties and the survival rate along with all the pain and suffering the survivors had to go through the days after the drop. After stating the horrific facts of the effects of the atom bomb Hersey goes on to...
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