Literary Criticism piece on Hiroshima

“His memory, like the world’s, was getting spotty.”

That is the final sentence of Hiroshima by John Hersey, referring to the memory of a hibakusha– atomic bomb affected person. 

I started this post with that carefully worded quote to highlight a consistent theme in the book: Memory. The original final chapter (chapter four, before the later addition of chapter five), ends with a child’s memories, “It would be impossible to say what horrors were embedded in the minds of the children who lived through the day of the bombing in Hiroshima.” These experiences that were embedded in their minds, these memories, would be the ones passed down through generations. This emphasis on memory adds to the humanity of the book and reminds me of how John Hersey was changing how Hiroshima’s perspective of the bomb would be remembered. 

The memories of children at the time, also stood out because they were different than adults’, free of political and military opinions, much like Hersey’s writing. In a literary analysis by Daniel Cordle, this is mentioned as well, “It remains largely silent on the military and political decisions behind the attack, but is perhaps all the more powerful for that”. In fact, I wouldn’t say his writing was opinionated at all because what he was doing was reporting the survivors’ experiences. However, his reporting stands out due to his writing style which greatly impacts the reader, more than other forms of journalism would.

While analyzing the story, I realized that it would not have become so historically significant if not for the writing style Hersey used. Writing with more dramatic descriptions, a different point of view than omniscient, or less thoughtful and intentional diction, would take away from how personal it was. Events in the book were presented in the same chronological order that the characters experienced them in, connecting readers to the story rather than a perspective where they already know the character’s future. The personal quality of the story and the reader sharing a sense of the unknown with the characters allows them to more deeply empathize. It is sentences like “her willpower and her weariness seemed to fight to an uneasy draw”, that create those feelings. In the year before this book was released, this level of empathy that humanized victims of Hiroshima was not common. The empathy that this writing style forced readers to have, is what makes Hiroshima historically significant. 

The historical significance of John Hersey’s writing brings me back to the theme I mentioned at the beginning. This book is about the memories of Hiroshima’s survivors, and the author alludes to the whole worlds memories of this historical event multiple times as well. It’s not just about memory though, it’s about forgetting. John Hersey didn’t want the world to forget the destruction of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, or remember it the way American propaganda from the time told it, and I think he is successful with that because thanks to the style in which he reported these survivors’ stories, the book Hiroshima is something people definitely won’t forget reading.

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