Explication of Hiroshima

History Ð'- Explication2

Narrative Structure within Hiroshima

There are ample literary devices within this book for me to hang my hat on in terms of an explication: the use of irony, locations as themes, the premise of choice and circumstance. However, what interested me the most within the piece was the narrative structure shift and how he was able to skillfully move focus from the individual, to the whole, and back again.

Prior to the bomb landing, Hersey painstakingly recounts the day-to-day activities of the protagonists in the story. By focusing on each person and meticulously breaking down their routines, he helps give credence to the feeling that this was a day like any other for the victims.

It's within this microcosm of their average lives that the reader is able to get a sense of normalcy for the citizenry, only to have it drastically altered once the bomb lands. But even in the presence of such great tragedy, the survivors mentioned have no grasp of the scope of the event at first. They have become so entrenched in their individual struggles that the overall situation isn't immediately evident.

For example the initial pages relate the fatality rate of the nuclear bomb and the vast amount of property damage and destruction, yet when Heresy focuses in on his characters, he captures their limited view and comprehension of the events. After the bomb explodes and thousand of people are dead, each of the six survivors he describes believes that they alone were the targets or victims of the bomb. None of them has any grasp of the severity and wide spread chaos of the situation.

Dr. Fujii does not realize how badly he is hurt; Reverend Tanimoto believes a bomb has fallen on the nearby house as he then notices the sky, noting the darkness even in the midst of morning. Dr. Sasaki is under the impression that his hospital was the only one that was bombed. Hersey clearly explains the personal recollections of each survivor as each is ale to remember. By using these techniques, Hersey emphasizes what statistics can't: that the extreme destruction and conflagration is so unexpected and so shocking that these survivors remember clearly their first reactions and when at ground zero.

It is the focus on the individual within the context of the massive destruction that lends so much