Analysis Of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War By Susan Southard

The main theme of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, is the impact of the war and nuclear weapons on the Japanese civilians, both physically and mentally. Susan Southard's story follows the lives of five hibakusha or atomic bomb affected people: Dō-oh Mineko, Nagano Etsuko, Wada Kōichi, Yoshida Katsuji, and Taniguchi Sumiteru (Southard xix). She uses testimonies, photographs, government documents, and news articles to present an accurate image of the consequences of nuclear war from the little-known side of Japanese citizens.
The book discusses the lives of the hibakusha as teenagers during wartime in Japan. It describes the chaos of everyday life and the sacrifices people made to further the war effort. Wada Kōichi speaks about his government mandated job as a streetcar operator and his intense hunger due to the miniscule rations during the war (Southard 6). Local markets were closed, and his family was forced to plant sweet potatoes and keep a garden in order to supplement their diet (Southard 7). Buildings and business were commandeered to increase output of aircraft and weapons (Southard 13). Even students were eventually required to cease their schooling and take up government jobs in production and other

Southard is so detail oriented and image focused in her writing that it begins to detract from the purpose of the book, which is to show the impact on the Japanese people. For example, she describes the layout of the city in great detail, the architecture of the buildings, the rivers, the mountains, and the various shops (Southard 14). While this provides an accurate picture of the city, there are so many superfluous details that it distracts from the story. It may serve to show a pre-nuclear city in contrast to the destruction in later chapters, but it fails to explain anything about the hibakusha, other than the scenery that Wada Kōichi is passing by at