Summary Of Welcome To Hiroshima By Mary Jo Salter

On August 6th 1945, the US dropped the largest bomb the world had ever seen on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb caused massive destruction and led to the death of over 100,000 Japanese people. After the war, Japan was forced into a period of reconstruction after it’s two largest cities were bombed and left in ruble. Over 40 years later an author, Mary Jo Salter’s writes of a visit to Hiroshima in which the speaker observes both the present recovery of the city and the devastation of the past. In her poem, “Welcome To Hiroshima”, Mary Jo Salter uses various literary elements, such as imagery, allusion, and diction to show that everything can recover even after the most disastrous events, yet you can never forget the damage without risking its

After the speaker entered the memorial museum the speaker describes the first exhibit saying, “ through more glass are served, as on a dish of blistered grass, three mannequins. Like gloves a mother clips to coatsleeves, strings of flesh hang from their fingertips; or as if tied to recall a duty for us” The author uses precise diction with the adjective, “blistered” to describe the scorched environment of the city's past; once again without mentioning the actual bombing itself. This diction works not only for the image of scorched grass, but also to the often forgotten blistered bodies that the bombing left behind. The author follows up with an even more disturbing image by going into great detail of the three mannequins that are used to represent the conditions of the people affected by the bomb. She compares their long strings of flesh on their fingertips to a mother clipping her child’s coat sleeve; a horrific reminder of the pain the people endured. The author finishes this quote with a message of responsibility for the reader to learn from this event in fear of it happening