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Symbolism In When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka

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Shelby Davis Mrs.Vermillion When the Emperor was Divine: Symbolism of Animals There are eight billion people in this world and each person has a different story. Everyone goes through something different. When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka is about a family who had to be put into an internment camp because of their race. The father was sent away and got arrested because he was suspected to be a spy. The family struggles for the next 3 years. Julie Otsuka wrote this story because she wanted to show real people and how everyone has been mistreated throughout history. This story has many symbols including the animals. The animals in this story represent the different outcomes of life we can possibly have. You aren’t allowed to have …show more content…

There are 2 animals that represent freedom. Freedom is important because the family and all Japanese Americans lost their freedom due to the war. The family also had a bird. The bird stayed in a cage that stayed in the kitchen. In the story, when the woman found out she couldn’t have any pets, she let the bird out the window which gave the bird freedom, though he didn’t seem to want to leave. “She opened the window and set the bird out the ledge. ‘You're alright,’ the bird said. She stroked the underside of his chin and he closed his eyes. ‘Silly bird,’ she whispered. She closed the window and locked it. Now the bird was outside on the other side of the glass. He tapped the pane three times with his claw and said something but she did not know what it was. She could not hear him anymore”(Otsuka 19-20). The bird eventually flew to a tree, although the woman wanted him to fly away so she forced him out the tree. “‘Go,’ she said. The bird flapped his wings and flew up into the maple tree. She grabbed the broom from behind the stove and went outside and shook the tree leaves. ‘Go’, she shouted. ‘Get on out of here.’ The bird spread its wings and flew into the night(Otsuka 20). The bird lived an imprisoned life, but he was still happy and safe until the women let him be free. The other animals in this story that represent freedom are the horses. As the family is on the train to the internment camps, the girl wakes up from a dream about her father. She looks out the window and spots something. “She pulled back the shade and looked out into the black Nevada night and saw a herd of wild mustangs galloping across the desert”(Otsuka 45). The mustangs started and ended their lives with privilege. They represent the total freedom that the family is hoping for. At the end of the book, the family finally went home. “When we came back after the war it was fall and the house was still ours… We carried our dusty suitcases up the

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Throughout the time Louie was at the POW camp where the Bird had control, Louie’s life was a living nightmare. The Bird would constantly hunt down Louie to brutally attack him. It came to the point where Louie had nightmares featuring the Bird. One day at a POW work camp a fish was stolen from the galley. The foreman told the Bird that a fish was stolen and the Bird pulled out Louie and two other men claiming that they were the thieves.

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Jett S. Backer Mrs. Vermillion Honors English 10 20 March 2023 Analyzing the Government Conflict in When the Emperor was Divine People all around the world have been wrongly oppressed for things that they didn’t do. When the people that get wrongly oppressed they usually get angry at the people that oppressed them or traumatized. In Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine, the characters, which are Japanese-Americans, are oppressed and have to deal with people that don’t like them because of their race and have to deal with the effects of that because the attack on pearl harbor really made the government worried about Japanese spies.

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When the Emperor was divine is a very interesting book. It explains the story of the WW1 internment camps from the point of view of the Japanese people and what they went through. It also includes many forms of symbolism that can completely change the story’s meaning. It also tries to imply how “American” the Japanese-American internees really were.

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In the beginning of the novel, otsuka describes how the mother of the family felt after being notified that they will be taken away to the camps. She doesn't show any emotions, once she sees the signs she goes straight into action, the mother knows that her family cannot take the dog with them to the camps, so she kills him with a shove, she released the bird as well. The bird was a sign of the mother losing hope, that bird was the last living thing that had her husband inside of it . MORE

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“‘It looks tired,’ daddy added, ‘or maybe sick.’... At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and amid flapping and spray of feathers, it tumbled down, bumping

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He tapped the pane 3 times with his claw… The bird spread his wings and flew up into the maple tree. She grabbed the broom…went outside and shook the branches of the tree… ‘Go,’ she shouted…the bird…flew off into the night”(Otsuka 19-20). The bird is the strongest representation of the theme in the novel. It was taken into captivity by the family and put in a cage

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The POWs tried resisting as much as they could. Something they would do was steal and sometimes try to stand up against the guards, although this would come with the cost of them being beaten. The bird was one of the guards that would beat them if they dared to move or place their hands to cover their faces. So instead of moving, they took it, taking every strength in their body to not mess up and move. Some of the prisoners paid them back by stealing.

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The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband. As the trifles collect,  the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it.

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The men of the group, much like John in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” consider themselves more capable than the women and refuse to consider Mrs. Wright as anything other than irrational. The men leave the women to their “trifles” on the first floor, where they discover a broken bird cage, and the bird’s body, broken, carefully wrapped in a small, decorative box. They realize that Mr. Wright had wrung the neck of his wife’s beloved bird and broken its cage. Mrs. Wright, once known for her cheerfulness and beautiful singing, she stopped singing when she encountered Mr. Wright. Just like he did with the bird, Mr. Wright choked the life out of his wife until, finally, Mrs. Wright literally choked the life out of her husband.

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They both conclude that someone was rough with the empty birdcage. Immediately afterward, Mrs. Hale comments on the men’s progress to find evidence, saying, “’I wish if they’re going to find any evidence they’d be about it’” (Glaspell 1416). Mrs. Hale’s remark is ironic because her current conversation about the birdcage’s door hinge is indirect evidence, yet she is growing impatient with the men’s attempts to discover any solid evidence. A little later on, Mrs. Hale relates the idea of a bird to Mrs. Wright by saying, “’she was kind of like a bird herself.’”

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