Analyzing Dower's 'Embracing Defeat'

When most people think of World War Two they think of the Nazis and the concentration camps. They also think of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan was part of Hitler’s Axis Powers and fought mostly naval battles with the U.S. Japan, prior to the 1940s, started to invade northern China, Manchuria. Japan gained control of Manchuria and what would be known as Taiwan after the Sino-Japanese War. You see, in America we take classes to learn about these things, for example Asian Studies, but what about in Japan? During the war, and after, what was it like to be a kid or teenager, an adult? How difficult was it to be in constant fear of being bombed, seeing planes fly through the sky not knowing if they were allied or not?

Historical and Cultural Context In Embracing Defeat: Japan in the wake of World War Two, it explains how the people of Japan suffered from the war. Dower explains it was not only economical property damage or the loss of life cost that the Japanese suffered from but psychological damage. “Dower's 'cultural history' begins with the anguish of physically and

The first story is of a boy named Kafka Tamura. Kaka is fifteen year old boy that has run away from home to find his long lost sister and mother. After gathering the necessary items he will need for his trip; clothes, money, soaps and deodorant, and also his father’s gold lighter along with an old cellphone he found in his father’s desk, he sets out on a train from his home town of Tokyo and into the city of Takamatsu. During the bus ride, Kafka, meets a girl named Sakura. After a brief rest stop and Sakura and Kafka meet each other they decide to sit on the bus together. Once in town Kafka checks into a hotel and proceeds to spend the rest of his days in the Komura Memorial Library. There he befriends the library assistant, Oshima and the manager of the library Miss