Hiroshima: Character Analysis, Plot Summary, General Analysis, and Alternate Ending

Essay by hellraizorpacoHigh School, 10th gradeA+, May 2004

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Characters

Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto

A Methodist pastor residing in Hiroshima, Rev. Tanimoto nurses the dying victims after the attack. Later, he becomes a peace activist and tours America.

Dr. Masakazu Fujii

A doctor in Hiroshima, Dr. Fujii's office falls into the Kyo River after the bomb was dropped. Ironically, he is unable to help others for he is wounded as well; a useless doctor who later contracts a strange illness.

Toshiko Sasaki

Miss Sasaki is a young clerk at a tin works factory. In the explosion, debris showers on her and she is trapped under a bookcase and receives no medical attention. She survives, yet crippled, and becomes a nun with her sister, Dominique.

Father Wilhelm Kleinsgore

Father Kleinsgore, a Jesuit priest, comforts the wounded and their families after the explosion, but falls ill with radiation poisoning. He assists Miss Sasaki and becomes a Japanese citizen under the name Father Makoto Takakura.

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

Dr. Sasaki, a young surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima operates on many victims of the bomb. One of his patients is Miss Sasaki. After the conflict, he studies radiation poisoning and the side effects of the bomb.

Hatsuyo Nakamura

The widow of a tailor, Mrs. Nakamura barely escapes the explosion that claimed her house, but along with her three children, falls victim to the radiation poisoning. After the trouble dies down, she has a difficult time finding a job and a home.

Plot Synopsis

The Allies, the Americans specifically, decimated Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. American B-29's dropped the atom bomb on the city killing 100 thousand and wounding 100 thousand more of a population of 250 thousand. Six people, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, Toshiko Sasaki, Father Wilhelm Kleinsgore, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, and Hatsuyo Nakamura, are not...