As Luck Would Have It
Throughout the movie Empire of the Sun, directed by Steven Spielberg, having read When the Emperor was Divine, by Julia Otsuka, the two creations revealed themselves to be foils. Over the course of the book, the family, as well as the greater Japanese-American community is subjected to senseless and unjustifiable acts of cruelty. They are jailed by their own government, while Jamie is imprisoned because his country was invaded. In the camps, Jamie experiences several miracles that saved him from being broken, or worse. On the contrary, the family loses their once valued connection, suffers through the miserable conditions, and returns to a shell of their former life, but weathers the storm using their personal methods
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to cope with an irreparable tragedy. Jamie Graham, the son of a prominent British diplomat, had everything he could ever want. A spoiled airplane fanatic, at a young age, Jamie looked down upon the less fortunate Chinese. He finds them to be interesting, almost amusing in their lowly ways. While in the car, Jamie is always peering at the poor man with his small tin can. While around the house, Jamie is commanding and conceited in his use of the servants. In a stroke of luck, Jamie narrowly avoids getting run over by an American, who feeds him, fails to sell him despite his great teeth, and cares for him anyway. The incredible luck is what ends up saving Jamie, now Jim during his internment. By the time Jim is interned at the Japanese camp, he becomes a resourceful, generous young man who has a respectable relationship with almost every prisoner. This miraculous transformation, as well as his sudden knowledge of Japanese, is very fortunate for both Dr. Rawlings, and himself, who could have easily been killed, as Basie later is, by the Japanese beating. Perhaps the most unbelievable moment of luck comes later in the movie, when a Japanese guard, having discovered Jim’s golf shoes, steps directly over Jim’s jet-black leather jacket, after pointing his gun directly at him, to pick up a toy plane. This scene is clearly evocative of the anecdote from When the Emperor Was Divine, when an innocent man, trying to pick a flower, was gunned down before he reached the gates. This is the epitome of the difference between the movie, and the novel. This fantastical film starkly contrasts the saddeningly accurate way Julia Otsuka portrays Japanese internment in America in When the Emperor was Divine.
The mother’s spirit is broken by the torment and monotony that each day brings. “She had stopped keeping track of the days. She no longer read the paper or listened to the bulletins on the radio. ‘Tell me when it’s over,’ she said”(93). This quote shows the utter lack of hope that the Japanese-Americans faced during this war. There would be no liberation, or food packages when the war was over. What the family did have to return to, was not much at all. “In the room where she had locked up our most valuable things—the View-Master, the Electrolux...—there was hardly anything left at all”(111). Returning home, the family realizes their lives can never return to normal. Their house was looted, their money stolen, and their security in doubt. There was no good luck in such tragedy. Even worse than the material losses, the mother, nor father, could never again feel safe in her own house, as shown by the quote, “He sat up and shouted out our names and we came running. ‘What is it?’ we asked him. ‘What’s wrong?’ He needed to see us, he said. He needed to see our faces. Otherwise he would never know if he was really awake”(133). This quote was very disturbing, and punctiliously illustrated the lifelong effects of internment and the division it …show more content…
caused. Though many parallels presented themselves in When the Emperor was Divine, and Empire of the Sun, Julia Otsuka’s book remains loyal to the tragic bleakness of the Japanese-American internment camps.
Meanwhile, in Empire of the Sun, Jamie consistently relies on blind luck to feed, clothe, and protect him from guns, both American and Japanese. Very rarely does Jamie’s skill save himself or others, but rather, his naiveté splits his family in the first place. The family in Julia Otsuka’s novel, however, suffer physically, and mentally, and as a result, turn inward to avoid the painful blows of their environment, but they do not rely on, nor receive, much luck at all, throughout the eloquently crafted
novel.
A jar of flowers. A box of salt. Tacked to the wall beside a small window, a picture of Joe DiMaggio torn from the magazine. There was no running water and the toilets were a half a block away” (Otsuka 51). This describes the items that the family had in their assigned room in the internment camp. Three times a day bells would clang and the smell of liver would drift across the entire camp. “On meatless days, the smells of beans. Inside the mess hall, the clatter of forks and spoons and knives. No chopsticks” (Otsuka 50). This explains that bells would clang when food was prepared. On the first day, the mother told the children to be careful and not touch the fence or talk to the guards, and never say the emperor’s name out loud. “Whenever the boy walked past the shadow of a guard tower he pulled his cap down low over his head and tried not to say the word. But sometimes it slipped out anyway. Hirohito, Hirohito, Hirohito” (Otsuka 52). In the camp, the Japanese-Americans were not allowed to say the emperor’s name because it was wrong. The boy remembers his father, who was taken away and was put into a prison “Whenever the son thought of his father on his last Sunday at home he did not remember the blue
But for some of the Japanese Americans, it was even harder after they were discharged from the internment camp. The evacuation and the internment had changed the lives of all Japanese Americans. The evacuation and internment affected the Wakatsuki family in three ways: the destruction of Papa’s self-esteem, the separation of the Wakatsuki family, and the change in their social status. The destruction of Papa’s self-esteem is one effect of the evacuation and internment. Before the evacuation and internment, Papa was proud; he had a self-important attitude, yet he was dignified.
Soon after Papa’s arrest, Mama relocated the family to the Japanese immigrant ghetto on Terminal Island. For Mama this was a comfort in the company of other Japanese but for Jeanne it was a frightening experience. It was the first time she had lived around other people of Japanese heritage and this fear was also reinforced by the threat that her father would sell her to the “Chinaman” if she behaved badly. In this ghetto Jeanne and he ten year old brother were teased and harassed by the other children in their classes because they could not speak Japanese and were already in the second grade. Jeanne and Kiyo had to avoid the other children’s jeers. After living there for two mo...
The novel, When The Emperor Was Divine, tells the story of a Japanese family who was told to go to camp to be in surveillance during World War II, where Japan was an enemy of the United States. The story begins with signs being put up in communities to inform people of the internment of Japanese Americans, and one of the main characters, the mother “read the sign from top to bottom… wrote down a few words… then turned around and went home to pack” (Otsuka 3). The mother is told to follow the orders of the government and she complies due to her beliefs about the government, that they have positive intentions. The Japanese family left their home and were marginalized out of their community and were ordered to go to an internment camp. The reason for their evacuation and of other Japanese Americans is that since Japan was an enemy of the United States during World War II, many Americans in the United States believed that Japanese Americans were spies and were on the opposing side of the war. Americans did not trust Japanese Americans anymore and the Japanese were soon discriminated and marginalized in the community, just like the Japanese family in the novel, because the American communities felt threatened by their
In a portion of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s memoir titled Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne’s Japanese family, living in California, is ordered to move to an internment camp called Manzanar. Society impacts the family in many ways, but in this segment of the story we primarily see its effects on Jeanne. The context and setting are as follows: the Pearl Harbor bombing was a very recent happening, the United States was entering into war with Japan, and President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066, allowing internment. Anyone who might threaten the war effort was moved inland into defined military areas. Essentially, the Japanese immigrants were imprisoned and considered a threat; nevertheless, many managed to remain positive and compliant. Jeanne’s family heard “the older heads, the Issei, telling others very quietly ‘Shikata ga nai’” (604), meaning it cannot be helped, or it must be done, even though the world surrounding them had become aggressive and frigid. The society had a noticeable effect on Jeanne, as it impacted her view of racial divides, her family relations, and her health.
...ile the war is still happening. The lack of freedom and human rights can cause people to have a sad life. Their identity, personality, and dignity will be vanish after their freedom and human right are taking away. This is a action which shows America’s inhuman ideas. It is understandable that war prison should be put into jail and take away their rights; but Japanese-American citizen have nothing to do with the war. American chooses to treat Jap-American citizen as a war prisoner, then it is not fair to them because they have rights to stay whatever side they choose and they can choose what ever region they want. Therefore, Otasuka’s novel telling the readers a lesson of how important it is for people to have their rights and freedom with them. People should cherish these two things; if not, they will going to regret it.
The United States of America a nation known for allowing freedom, equality, justice, and most of all a chance for immigrants to attain the American dream. However, that “America” was hardly recognizable during the 1940’s when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering 120,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated to internment camps. As for the aftermath, little is known beyond the historical documents and stories from those affected. Through John Okada’s novel, No-No Boy, a closer picture of the aftermath of the internment is shown through the events of the protagonist, Ichiro. It provides a more human perspective that is filled with emotions and connections that are unattainable from an ordinary historical document. In the novel, Ichiro had a life full of possibilities until he was stripped of his entire identity and had to watch those opportunities diminish before him. The war between Japan and the United States manifested itself into an internal way between his Japanese and American identities. Ichiro’s self-deprecating nature that he developed from this identity clash clearly questions American values, such as freedom and equality which creates a bigger picture of this indistinguishable “America” that has been known for its freedom, equality, and helping the oppressed.
Breathless is in many ways the antithesis of the classical Hollywood cinema; the changes have a direct effect on the relationship the film has with the viewer. Classical Hollywood cinema includes standards such as continuity editing, highly motivated, character-driven stories and a coherent narrative structure. Breathless defies these elements of traditional filmmaking, instead defining what we know as French New Wave.
John Dower's "Embracing Defeat" truly conveys the Japanese experience of American occupation from within by focusing on the social, cultural, and philosophical aspects of a country devastated by World War II. His capturing of the Japanese peoples' voice let us, as readers, empathize with those who had to start over in a "new nation."
“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.
Citizen 13660 is a narrative and historical account of a young Japanese-American artist that was forced to relocate to different camps during WWII. During this time the author, Mine Okubo, captures her story through pictures and captions. Considering the entire narrative images as a whole, the three greatest challenges facing Okubo during her WWII experience was the lack of privacy, harsh living conditions, and the fact of living like a prisoner. These are by far not the only challenges Okubo encounters at these camps but these are some very significant ones.
In this explication of this movie RAN several items will be discussed. Culturally the movie will be critiqued on how the Japanese culture is shown throughout the movie, and the structure of how the characters progress throughout the movie. The conflict between characters will also be discussed in reference to the obstacles they face and how they deal with them. This movie deals mainly with loyalty and tradition (bushido), and how a traditional Japanese family handles not only their personal problems, but also relating to their society and surroundings.
For the gallery show review, I went to the International Center of Photography Museum where tons of photographs, interview videos, primary and secondary documents and objects are exhibited. Each of these artworks reveal the brutal truth of World War II. During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans living in the West Coast were forcefully evicted from their houses and were moved into 10 different incarceration camps where they were guarded by military personnels. The constitutional rights of Japanese Americans were violated by the United States government, and these events were captured in photographs by photographers like Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Clem Albers, Toyo Miyatake, and Russell Lee. These evidences of terror from World War II justify the title of the exhibition Then They Came for Me: Japanese American in the Incarceration camp. All the
Freedom is not free. These powerful words resound in my mind as I admire the Korean War Memorial at the National Mall. Surrounded by several life size statues of soldiers in action I feel an odd sensation. I am either overwhelmed by emotion or completely drained of it; I cannot tell which. Staring into the smoky colored granite I see one thousand faces glaring back at me. At one instance I see the faces of thousands of soldiers’ faces reflected back to me. Seconds later, I swear I can see the faces of one thousand forgotten children looking deep into my eyes. These “children of the war” silently scream of one thousand different stories that have been forgotten or brushed aside for decades now. Abruptly, the children vanish and once again I see the soldiers, only now they are indignant. They bark at me with strong voices, “No, this was our forgotten war. We are the truly forgotten!” However, I disagree. These soldiers, now veterans, have earned this monument and have had their voices and stories heard. Yet, these “children of the war,” both Korean and Ameriasian, who grew up in Korea’s post war era of the 50’s and 60’s are the truly forgotten. They are forgotten because virtually no one realizes what their lives were like growing up; hence, no one recognizes the hardships and battles that many of these children faced. To fully understand these forgotten “children of the war” one must first listen to their story.
The Tale of Genji is seen as many things, whether it is the first novel written or the world’s first psychological novel. In this book, Murasaki Shikibu tells the story of Hikaru Genji and his experiences. The Tale of Genji is considered the world’s first novel; the story takes us through the birth and death of Genji, a smart, attractive, and talented boy. Genji, is the second son of Emperor Kiritsubo and as the son of an emperor Genji’s life is extremely controlled, whether it be arranged marriages or having little to no secrecy. Through his extra-ordinary life, Genji deals with very ordinary circumstances; various love affairs, some of which bearing children, and the death of loved ones. Shikibu is able to capture her readers in this book by writing with enough emotion and detail that the story is given validity through the chapters. The validity is captured in the many of the stories conflicts whether it be; a father making the right decision, feeling close to someone who resembles one’s mother, reliving lost loves, losing a loved one, or having a son then losing your wife. Shikibu brings these stories to life in The Tale of Genji in a way that brings truth to the very story she is telling.