Analysis Of When The Emperor Was Divine

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Julie Otsuka’s When The Emperor Was Divine told the unspoken stories of many Japanese-Americans during the Interment. Remembering the experiences that thousands of innocent people went through can leave them to feel uneasy and upset. The stripping of their identity and reclassifying them as enemy aliens left them with everlasting trauma and nightmares. Japanese-Americans were arrested, rounded up and transported to Internment camps across the United States where, in some cases, they were held for several years. Therefore, the Japanese-Americans during the Second World War had lasting repercussions from psychological, physical and financial aspects on the prisoners. The signs plastered all over town creates an unpleasant atmosphere in the woman 's life which affects her psychologically in several ways. She was associated with the middle class as seen in her silk dress and white gloves. However, nine days after the evacuation notice, she still was not finished packing which left me to believe she and her family were not ready to face the unknown or unfamiliar events yet to come. During the Internment, all who were taken were called not by their own name, but only by numbers. The unnamed characters left a distinctive perception of how the woman …show more content…

The fight and courage she keeps for her children reflects the reality of the thousands of prisoners who were wrongly sent away and sripped of their identity, innocence and self worth. While the woman is faced with abandoning her family 's comfortable home and becoming the main caregiver for her two children, and strongly represents the large amount of Japanese-Americans who went through psychological, financial and physical burdens during their time at the internment camps. When The Emperor Was Divine did a fantastic job of giving a voice to those who were too afraid to speak up and let their stories be

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