An Analysis Of Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka is a novel about the hardships that the Japanese-Americans faced during a time in which they were forced to live in internment camps. There is a scene which depicts a middle-aged woman who ties her dog to a tree, then proceeds to lay her pet in a hole that she previously digs into the ground, telling it to play dead. The woman then picks up a shovel wearing white gloves and strikes the dog in the head. She buries it in her backyard before her kids come home from their last day of school. The white gloves show an absence of evil in her intent. White is a gentle color: it is the color of our walls, the sky, and the snow that falls from the clouds on Christmas. It is important for the author to show that the woman is not malevolent because it establishes her character as a person with goodwill.

Before the woman kills the dog, she feeds it.

This is further evidence that the woman has compassion for the dog because she wants the dog to minimize the dog’s suffering. The author is making the point that the woman is not crazy or violent, but she actually does this for the betterment of her and the dog’s situation. She tries to kill the dog in the most merciful manner that she can. When the woman refers to the dog, she calls it “White Dog”: “A small white dog came limping out of the trees. ” (p 10). This name is a symbol for the nature of the situation that the country is in at the moment. In this case, “white” stands for the innocent Japanese-Americans who are being stripped from their rights and the word “dog” symbolizes how other Americans are treating the Japanese with harsh, unfair

aggression.
Another instance of the woman doing something puzzling occurs when she returns home from the internment camp. Otsuka portrays the woman reaching for her house key, which she has hanging for her neck, right after waking up every morning when she was in the camp. She does this to reassure herself that she will be able to go home. Her hope gives her the power to go throughout her days and eventually make it home. Otsuka writes:
The key had become a part of her. It was always there, a small, dark shape, dangling - visibly and sometimes invisibly, depending on the light, and what she was wearing, and even, at times, it seemed, on her mood - just beneath the surface of her clothes. (p 107)

The key symbolizes her home and is proof that she stays true to herself and refuses to let her experience change her character because she is always connected to her home. A dark shape connotes that the key, and in a larger aspect, her home, is being threatened because she is being blocked off from that part of her life. The author uses the word “shape” instead of “color” because shape conveys a stronger form of change. If the color of something is changed, it can be turned back to its original tint with methods such as painting and dying. If the shape of something is changed, it requires more power to mend the object into another shape. With this passage, the author is showing that while the woman’s circumstance was constantly changing, she always had a sense of her home.
These moments in this woman's experience ultimately show that no matter what the situation is, in the end, she makes the right choice. She knew that killing the dog was necessary because it was important to her path of ultimately having peace and tranquillity. Additionally, she is aware of the fact that she needed to keep the key closeby because the hope that it gave her enabled her to have the power to make it home. The author makes the point that the path to serenity will be plagued with hardship and one should have a vision of who they are in order to make it back to where they came from.