Hiroshima John Hersey

Transcription

1 Hiroshima John Hersey PHOTOGRAPH BY SHUNKICHI KIKUCHI/MAGNUM A view of Hiroshima, in 1945, from a hill which rises in the eastern part of the city. Name: Period: English 10 Regents 1

2 JOHN HERSEY, THE WRITER WHO LET HIROSHIMA SPEAK FOR ITSELF By Russell Shorto published in The New Yorker on August 31, 2016 PHOTOGRAPH BY DMITRI KESSEL / THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION / GETTY John Hersey was thirty-two when The New Yorker published Hiroshima, his massively influential article on the atomic bombing. Seventy years ago (1946), this magazine devoted its entire August 31 st issue to an article by John Hersey titled Hiroshima. It became a landmark in journalism, in publishing, and in humanity s awareness of itself and its own awful potential. It detailed the lives of six people who had survived the American atomic attack on the Japanese city, which had taken place a year earlier. Much reporting had been done in the aftermath of the bombing, most of which was technical or philosophical, focusing on the power of the weapon or on the wisdom of using it. In choosing instead to report on individual victims, to follow the unfolding of their lives in minute detail from the moment the bomb fell and as they struggled to exist through the ensuing weeks, Hersey did something altogether different. He bore witness. The issue of the magazine sold out at newsstands. The thirty-one-thousandword article was read over the radio; parts of it were excerpted in newspapers; three million copies of it were sold in book form. It has been in print ever since. 1. Think Aloud: What differentiated Hersey s article from others that were being written in 1946? 2

3 Yet while Hersey, who was thirty-two at the time of publication, and who had covered the war extensively for Time and Life, received accolades, and some criticism, in the aftermath of Hiroshima, he remained somehow outside the glare of the attention it generated. Likewise, for all the humanity of the article, its author, who died in 1993, seems scarcely present in it; it seems almost not to have an author. And the man who wrote what has been called the most important work of journalism of the twentieth century, as well as a shelf of best-selling novels and works of nonfiction, seems largely forgotten today. As it happens, one of John Hersey s sons, Baird, is my brother-in-law. Through the years, at holiday gatherings, we have chatted about his father. With this anniversary in mind, we had a more purposeful conversation. I asked Baird, who is a musician and composer living in upstate New York, about the man his father was, about his approach to writing Hiroshima, and about the enigma of his authorial persona. My father had a very strong moral compass, Baird said. I think it was because his parents were missionaries. He lived in China, where they were doing Y.M.C.A. mission work, until he was eleven. Even though he wasn t a religious person he eventually reacted against being raised in that world he had a strong sense of right and wrong, and humility, and that colored his approach to Hiroshima. Hersey was on a Navy ship on his way to Japan to report the story when he fell ill and someone gave him books to read, one of which happened to be Thornton Wilder s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. It was a novel that traced the stories of five people who are killed when a bridge collapses. It struck my father that that would be a good vehicle for presenting the story of the people who were subjected to the atomic bomb, Baird said. He told me about getting the idea of using novelistic devices to structure his reporting. He wanted to put faces and names to the story. Prior to that, we had been at war with Japan, and everyone had this opinion of the Japanese. He wanted to show their humanity in a way that people in this country could connect to to convey the enormity of what had happened. The structure of Hiroshima was one of the things that resonated with readers. Its use of fictional devices, such as building to a suspenseful moment with one character and then switching to another, was radical at the time, and made it a precursor to the New Journalism of the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Hersey himself said that the profundity of the nuclear attack, and his consequent need to try to convey the reality of it to readers, forced him outside of journalistic conventions. With journalism, Hersey once said, the reader is always conscious of the person who s writing it and explaining to you what s taken place. He said he wanted to have the reader directly confronted by the characters, so he tried to write the piece in such a way that, as he put it, my mediation would, ideally, disappear. The disappearing writer was not just a feature of the work itself but, in a sense, of Hersey s career. He was quite young when he had his success, but it didn t go to his head, Baird told me. I think he found the acclaim and attention to be hollow. As a result, the author of the biggest publishing 3

4 sensation of its time was a virtual stranger to the world of publicity. He never went on tour. He never wanted to flog his wares, as he said. He didn t go on TV or radio, didn t give lectures. He only did two interviews in his life. He was a member of the generation that developed the cult of the author people like Norman Mailer were doing The Dick Cavett Show but he didn t want any part of that. 2. Think Aloud: Consider Hersey s audience and purpose. Explain. 3. Think Aloud: How did Hersey structure his article to accomplish his purpose? Baird s memories of his father are of a private man, but not a recluse. Hersey had a small circle of close friends, which included Lillian Hellman, William Styron, Ralph Ellison, Jules Feiffer, and Anthony Lewis. He belonged to civic organizations, spoke out against the Vietnam War, and taught writing at Yale. But he was guarded about his work. He had this theory that you should never talk about a book you were working on, Baird said. He felt that writers would lose the energy of their stories by talking about them. So we didn t even know what he was writing. Then there would be a dinner after he had sent the manuscript to the publisher, and he would share with the family what the book was about. Baird was born after the publication of Hiroshima. His memories are of his father at work on later books. They lived in Fairfield, Connecticut, and Hersey wrote in a small cottage some distance from the house. I used to climb a tree, knock on the window, and ask if he could come out. He was very regular in his habits. Every morning he would write, in longhand, doublespaced, so that he could make corrections. In the afternoons he would answer correspondence. He got lots of mail, and there was only one kind of letter he would not answer. If the name was spelled Hershey, it went in the trash can. Baird doesn t remember his father making a big deal about any of his work, or his fame. He was very reserved, which I think he regretted, because he had a loving and warm side, he said. If my parents were having a dinner party and I couldn t sleep, he d come up and rub my back. 4

5 In a perfect world, fathers exert a firm and wise influence on their children. Perhaps that rarely happens. But Baird told me that his father s philosophy on work and the world coalesced for him in one conversation they had. Baird was himself about the age his father had been when Hiroshima was published. We were on Martha s Vineyard, where he always spent his summers. I had built up a body of work as a musician. I had just had a record come out that had gotten some attention but didn t break out. I was in that phase of my career, trying to figure it out. I guess I had something in me that pulled me toward wanting fame. I wanted to know how he had managed things early in his career. And what he said, essentially, was you can t look to the outside world to make you whole. That affected me profoundly. Hersey s refusal to flog his wares continues in effect. His daughter, Brook Hersey, a clinical psychologist living in Manhattan, who is his literary executor, told me that when it comes to ancillary projects that people bring to her movie deals, prospective biographies I have tried to make decisions based on what I think he would have wanted, and that was to let his works speak for themselves. As a result, she said, I ve always erred on the side of saying no. The slow fade in popular awareness of Hersey is surely in part a result of that, as well as of the simple passage of time. But Hersey s sensibility, so at odds with today s, suited its era. The authorial anonymity the humility in Hiroshima made it the most respectful way to present the people Hersey encountered in a post-nuclear city, and the clearest way to show Americans what they had done. 4. Think Aloud: Use details from the text to characterize Hersey. KWL Chart Subject: Hiroshima What do you KNOW WHAT do you want to know? What did you LEARN? 5

6 Year Written: Author: Genre: Chapters 1 & 2 (pgs. 1-41) Due Date: Directions: Answer the following questions as you read Chapters 1 & 2. When necessary, give evidence from the text and cite page numbers. Define the following words as you read chapter 1: 1. Convivial 2. Hedonistic 3. Notorious 4. Philanthropy 5. Terminus Define the following words as you read chapter 2: 1. Awry 2. Conflagration 3. Dilapidation 4. Laceration 5. Vortex 1. Use outside sources to explain the context in which the book was written. 6

7 2. Explain John Hersey s writing style and how he structures the text. (See Your Rhetorical Keystone.) 3. Use specific details to describe the situation in Hiroshima before the atomic bomb? 4. The following are the names of the six survivors Hersey focuses on in the text. For each survivor, record details that stand out to you as you read each chapter. Survivor Before the Bomb Chpt. 1 A Noiseless Flash Chpt. 2 The Fire Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura 7

8 Dr. Masakazu Fujii Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge Dr. Terufumi Sasaki Miss Toshinki Sasaki Which survivor(s) interests you the most? Why? 8

9 5. Compare and Contrast: How is the aftermath of the atomic explosion similar to the aftermath of a natural disaster? How are they dissimilar? 6. Based on what you ve read thus far, what can you infer is Hersey s view of the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Why? Chapters 3 & 4 (pgs ) Due Date: Directions: Answer the following questions as you read Chapters 3 & 4. When necessary, give evidence from the text and cite page numbers. Define the following words as you read chapter 3: 1. Benumbed 2. Moribund 3. Putrid 4. Succinct 5. Suppurate Define the following words as you read chapter 4: 1. Cache 2. Capricious 3. Emanation 4. Malaise 5. Succumb 9

10 1. Complete the chart below with descriptions of the survivors and changes that have occurred in their lives. Record details. Survivor Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto Chapter 3 Details are Being Investigated Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura Dr. Masakazu Fujii Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge Dr. Terufumi Sasaki Miss Toshinki Sasaki 2. Why is the title for Chapter 3 appropriate? Explain. 10

11 3. How does Mr. Tanimoto describe the Japanese Emperor s surrender and notice to the Japanese people? 4. How does Dr. Sasaki deal with the fatalities at the Red Cross Hospital? Is that a typically Japanese way of handling death? Explain. 5. Hersey creates vivid images for the reader in Chapter 3. Choose two images that had the greatest impact on you and explain why. In addition, complete a rhetorical analysis of the image. Image (pg. #) Explanation Rhetorical Analysis 11

12 6. For each survivor, record details that are relevant as you read Chapter 4. Survivor Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto Chapter 4: Panic Grass and Feverfew Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura Dr. Masakazu Fujii Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge Dr. Terufumi Sasaki Miss Toshinki Sasaki 7. What is the significance of the title of Chapter Four? 12

13 8. When Father Kleinsorge returns to Hiroshima in August, what does he find? 9. What were some of the symptoms of the mysterious, capricious disease which was called radiation disease? Identify at least two. 10. What are the three stages of radiation sickness? Stage 1: Stage 2: Stage 3: 13