Hiroshima

What role does Japanese culture play in the reactions, thoughts, and responses to the dropping of the nuclear bomb? Find examples from the text to support your ideas.

In the original 1946 edition of the book, Chapter 4 was the final chapter. How does that ending complement the first three chapters? What is the relationship between these first chapters and the fourth? What do you think Hersey is attempting to do in what originally was the final chapter?

How does the relationship of Father Kleinsorge and Toshiko Sasaki in the book reflect The Commonalities of Humans?

How does the addition of Chapter 5 affect the narrative? Does it deepen the story or diminish it? Why?

Is the story ultimately a tragedy or a tale of overcoming difficult circumstances? Why? Use textual support from Hiroshima.

Hersey’s account of the bombing of Hiroshima raised inevitable moral questions about the decision to use a weapon that could cause so many civilian deaths, not to mention lingering medical problems for survivors. His work was so influential in this regard that United States Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote a kind of reply that was published in Harper’s magazine the following February. In this reply, Stimson defended the Truman administration’s decision to use the bomb. Find Stimson’s article and read it. Do you think he makes a compelling case? In your opinion, was the U.S. morally justified in using the bomb? Why or why not?

Find a copy of Dawn over Zero by New York Times journalist William Laurence, another book on nuclear weapons published in 1946. Read the third section called “Armageddon” that describes the dropping of nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Compare Laurence’s writing style to Hersey’s. How does Laurence report the bombing? What was your feeling in reading the different works? Discuss literary elements such as word choice and point of view, as well as other writing choices the authors make that cause their accounts to be similar or different.

Hersey uses limited perspective when writing about Dr. Fujii’s experience just after the bombing. Find another character that Hersey presents using a limited point of view. How does this approach affect the reading experience? What advantages and/or disadvantages does it entail? What was your reaction when reading the passage through Dr. Fujii’s eyes?