A Book Review Of John Hersey's Hiroshima

On August 6 of 1945 The United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. In Hiroshima John Hersey uses multiple perspectives to portray the bombing in 1945. The bomb kills 100,000 people, but others survive by chance, by fate, by decisions made in moments, and by being in fortunate locations. A reader can learn a lot from these perspectives, it may be tiresome, but this style of writing is informative.
There are six main characters, six survivors who are all very different. They are Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works; Dr. Masakazu Fujii, a medical doctor who is reading on the porch of his residence; and Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow, who is listening to the silence of her sleeping children and watching a neighbor's house. There is also Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, who is reading on the third floor of the mission house;

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital; and the Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Methodist minister. A hundred thousand people died, but these six people survived the atomic bomb. Each of them saw the same bomb drop from a different angle, and each of them has their own personal story about the bomb. This style of writing talked about these characters lives before, during, and after the bombing. Hersey described every characters thoughts, emotions, and how they handled the situation. The doctors have their own story, the priests have their own stories, civilians have their own stories, this way of writing is so successful of illustrating all of these perspectives. How the doctors healed the wounded, how the priests encouraged faith to the doubtful, and how injured civilians helped others despite their personal problems. This style of writing should be used more often in historical events, to enhance what different people experience during different situations.
In the hours following the bombing, each survivor attempts to free himself or herself, find loved ones, and help others if possible.

Heresy does not just describe how the main characters are handling the situation for themselves, but how they are helping other people handle the situation. For example, Dr. Sasaki works 19 hours at a time, stressfully trying to bandage the thousands of injured people making their way into his hospital. During the evening of August 6, the survivors struggle to endure and help each other. The city is a ball of flame, and the park is filled with radiation and strong winds. The suffering of thousands of people and their wounds and burns are described repeatedly. As Hersey describes how the characters are soon giving up hope, he portrays everyones depression and emotions so vividly it seems unlikely. "The lives of these six people, who were among the luckiest in Hiroshima, would never be the same. What they thought of their experiences and of the use of the atomic bomb was, of course, not unanimous,"

(87).
Edward Bond once said, "We are still living in the aftershock of Hiroshima, people are still the scars of history." To sum up, this writing style through many perspectives is easy to comprehend with this much information of a historical event. Hersey makes this novel and the understanding of this historical event easy to grasp. Even though this novel is about a tragic story, the characters and perspectives acts as if the reader is talking to an acquaintance.