"Little Boy" --the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
"Fat Man" --dropped on Nagasaki August 9, 1945.
Stories of Hiroshima Bombing
(1945)
“Summer Flower” –1947
“Human Ashes” –1966
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
Hiroshima literature


First –generation: witness account or
realistic descriptions of the victims;
“second- generation survivors”: with a
broader perspective, acknowledge
clearly that Japan and the Japanese
were partly to blame (as aggressors in
the Pacific War, and also their invasion
of China).
First Reactions

First experience of the bombing in the
three stories: p. 38; p. 68-69




1.
2.
lack of understanding, puzzled at not seeing
holes 42; helpless;
losing contact with the surrounding, numbness
p. 73; helping, or being selfish
Gaps in memory (“it”; meeting the teacher’s
wife), non-verbal memories
First reactions:
Disgust at injuries 41; 45; 71 ;
Wandering or escaping to the river;
Hara Tamiki (1905-1951)
An English major; familiar with Russian lit,
wrote poems himself, too.
 “Summer Flower” in 1947
 “The Land of Heart's Desire” in 1951.
-- A suicide note in the form of an account of
troubled dreams recalling memories of the
Hiroshima bombing.
-- The author committed suicide in 1951, when
there were rumors about the use of A-Bomb
in the Korean war.

“Summer Flower”

A straightforward account of scenes witnessed by
the author after the bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima. The story begins with the narrator
visiting the graves of his wife and parents three
days earlier, and concludes with a friend searching
for his wife's remains mingled with the bones of her
pupils in the ruins of the girls' school where she
taught. He says that the ruins of his house
reminded him of The Fall of the House of Usher.
The author, who published this narrative in 1947,
committed suicide in 1951.
“Summer Flower”: Verbal Construction
of non-verbal memories



Irony: the wife’s grave, flower and
incenseFumihiko 51; N’s experience 5354
Central Pattern: searching (to satisfy basic
needs) and meeting the injured among
broken pieces and corpses.
Dominant images:

the tree 40; memory of childhood
p47voices(46-47) and corpses 51 (“haunting
rhythm”)
Katsuzo Oda “Human Ashes”
(1969)


a boy’s experience of displacement
and his adolescent desires 64;
avoiding his aunt, 64 looking for the
aunt 79, seeing the teacher’s wife 82
“Human Ashes” (1969)


Compared with “Summer Flower,”
does the narrator of this story show
greater distance from, or better
understanding of, the event?
Why does the story take a diary form?
Do you see other literary techniques
here?
“Human Ashes” (1969)
Other Ironies:
Respect for soldiers/authorities and even kamikaze
(神風特攻隊) Death of the figures of authorities

1.


2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
the role of the military 64; “a soldier in uniform” 65-66
 Dragonfly 69; the lieutenant 71; the student 73;
Ichikawa? P. 72
People losing their mind (72; 74)
People unable to help each other p. 74; violent
when it gets to getting food (crackers) 
Order and calm –only apparent p. 76
nightmare of childhood
Ash-Covered bodies with oil and sweat, streams of
blood (76) Human ashes
Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
What is the film about?
-- The atomic destruction of
Hiroshima and the psychological
consequences of World War II?
Director： Alain Resnais
Script：Marguerite Duras
Actors： Emmanuelle Riva
Eiji Okada
General Introduction:
Background



1959 – the beginning of French New Wave;
also the year when Godard's Breathless,
Truffaut's The 400 Blows were released.
Resnais –By 1959 Resnais had produced a
lot of documentaries; e.g. 1955 Night and
Fog, which Godard has called a
documentary on the “memory of Auschwitz.”
After seeing the documentaries already
produced on Hiroshima, Resnais changed
his mind, asking Duras to write the script for
him.
General Introduction: Impossibility
of Historic representation



Reenacting the pain and horror of such
events cannot be portrayed in a
documentary manner;
such representation is possible only if it is
mediated through human experiences of
love and death.
Plot -- the sexual tryst between the French
actress, who is married, and her Japanese
lover, an architect who is also married,
General Introduction: Structure
and Plot


But the story goes deeper as they dig up her
past, and they have a mutual recognition.
five panels (not labeled, as such in the film
itself): Prologue, Night and Morning, Day, The
Café by the River, and Epilogue.
General Introduction: Structure
and Plot (2)

five panels (not labeled, as such in the
film itself): Prologue, Night and Morning,
Day, The Café by the River, and
Epilogue.
Starting Questions


What does the beginning shots of the film
mean? And the opening sequence?
"You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing," "I
saw everything.... Every thing." What does
she see?
Remembering and Seeing


Bodily memory, or enactment of one’s
memory. (bodies in sex = bodies
covered by atomic ashes)
Opposed to the visualization of
memories – museum, park, newsreel,
and a film about "peace."
What she sees:

Hospital with patients averting their
faces, documentaries, Hiroshima park
and museum
Hiroshima at the present time:

The film and the parade:
Lui (Him) and Elle (Her)


Both traumatized;
“I was never younger than I was in
Nevers.”
Forgetting the past
Torn between the Past, the
Present and future forgetfulness
Saying Goodbye to both the
Past or the present?



Walking thru’ Hiroshima, with
flashbacks of Nevers.
Elle: I consigned “you” to oblivion.
Lui: “We’re sad about leaving
each other”
Self-Othering

Casablanca
The ending:

What does it mean to call each other
by the name of their cities?
For next week: Obasan





A story about the Japanese’ experience of WWII,
both in Canada and in Japan. (Three generations,
Issei, Nisei, Sansei.)
Protagonist, Naomi + Stephen (3rd), separated from
her mother before the war against Japan started;
experience two fold relocation (from Vancouver to
Slocan to Alberta)
lives with their uncle and aunt (Obasan), visited by
another aunt (Nisei)
The present: Naomi: a timid and unsocialable
school teacher.
The uncle’s yearly ritual on 8/9 ( 1951 the
bombing of Nagasaki)
For next week: Obasan (2)



The death of the uncle brings Naomi
back to Obasan’s house, the question
about the mother arises again.
Aunt Emily’s package  Naomi starts
to remember the past;
The present moment –Obasan’s
package (with the grandmother’s letter)
Our focus: the mother’s silence
and final communication

the avenues of silence are the
avenues of speech 228 ==233

“There is a silence that cannot speak;
there is a silence that will not speak.”