Hiroshima By Susan Sontag

The American Revolutionary War was the most important war in gaining America’s independence. Other than the statistics that showed the American troops being greatly outnumbered, the images drawn from the war display their true honor and persistence. Without the access to war imagery, we would not be able to see the honor and persistence. The images of war serve to paint the emotions of the people involved in war and expose the real horrifying effects caused by war. Authors, John Berger and Susan Sontag, believe that images go hand-in-hand with war for these very reasons. In the article “Hiroshima,” Berger insists that people do not know the true devastation of the Hiroshima bombing because the images of the incident were kept. He believes

Sontag states in her piece “Regarding the Pain of Others,”that war and imagery do not exist without the other. She claims that many times these images are too focused on one point of view causing an inaccurate illustration of the reality of war. Although Berger supports the point mentioned in Sontag’s piece on the belief that images of war are necessary, both articles conflict each other when discussing whether all images should be available to everyone and if the images show the true reality of war. Berger and Sontag emphasize the influence that war imagery can have on a person. Images are so moving and impactful that war does not exist without images. Sontag points out that “War-making and picture-taking are congruent activities.” (261) in order to emphasize their equal importance on war. The actual battle is just as important as capturing the moment on a camera because they both locate exactly who the opposition may be. This very detail scares those of a higher

In Sontag’s piece, she questions the integrity of the people producing images of war. She includes the process of those producing the war images, “The real thing may not be fearsome enough, and therefore needs to be enhanced,”(259). Images can be distorted to make the opposition seem worse and those on their side appear as honorable and patriotic. Later in her piece, Sontag brings up the increased censorship of war imagery and calls into question why images are being altered. When Sontag calls into question the legitimacy of the war images, it is effective in causing the readers to take a step back and really question the images that are distributed from war. On the other hand, Berger believes images show the true reality of war. The drawings by the citizens were seen as showing the true reality of the Hiroshima bombing. “Nobody can confront the reality...It is not a question of opinion or interpretation, but of events.” (Berger 320). Here he says that images provide an undeniable truth, and that is because images are drawn from real factual events. In Berger’s view, photos from Hiroshima cannot be disputed because they were drawn from real people suffering from the bombing, and no one can question this reality of suffering since they were real