Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

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In Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine, she tells the story of an anonymous Japanese-American family living in Berkeley, California, in 1942. In the months following the end of World War II, Japanese families living in America were subjected to discrimination due to their racial orientation, sent to internment camps, and returned home just to receive the same treatment as before. Otsuka very obviously leaves the identities of the main characters in her novel unknown to describe the universality of the situation each ordinary Japanese-American person faces, which depicts how Otsuka’s unique style of writing uses nameless and named characters throughout the novel to express how the American government harshly treated Japanese American …show more content…

One interaction stood out more than the others, and that was when the daughter of the Japanese-American family met a young girl like her. “What’s your doll’s name?” “Miss Shirley.” The young girl held the doll up shyly.” “Mama bought her for me from the Sears catalog.” This conversation between two young girls presents itself as innocent, but in reality, it is ironic. Ironically, an inanimate object, such as a doll, is allowed to have a name and something to refer to, but when it comes to someone like the daughter in the family, the brother, or the mother, all living people with identities, personalities, and stories to be shared, no one would dare ask for their names. The significance of the name “Shirley” also plays a role in the irony, as little Shirley Temple was a young American girl icon during this period, inspiring hairstyles, and many little girls wanted to be like her, so of course girls not representing her looks or lifestyle would be ignored. Another instance is when the inner monologue of the two main character children in the family is shared, “We would change our names to sound more like

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