The Shadow Sankichi

In the poem “The Shadow” by Toge Sankichi, he presents the disturbance that happened in Japan after the bombing. He provides detailed illustrations of the graphic scenes and describes in depth of the victims, explosion, and aura of the city afterwards. In the poem “The Shadow” Toge Sankichi uses imagery to portray the terrible experience he had been through and his dissatisfaction towards the reconstruction after the tragedy.
Using imagery, Sankichi conveys his horrific memory and displeasure towards the reparation after the bombing. The poem begins with the image of the “New Hiroshima”: “Cheap movie theaters, saloons, fly-by-night markets, burned, rebuilt, standing, crumbling, spreading like the itch – the New Hiroshima/…/already visible

In the second stanza, Toge Sankichi depicts the calamity he witnessed: “Ah! If you are from Hiroshima and on that morning, amid indescribable flash and heat and smoke, /…/ the shadow of the cloud, crawled about dragging skin that was peeling off, so transformed that even your wife and children would not have known you” (20-22, 24-27). Using the expression “Ah!” adds on to the sense of reality of the poem, which also suggests the sorrow and helplessness Sankichi feels. In the next line, Sankichi illustrates a graphic scene of the bombing event, “dragging skin that was peeling off “ which are chilling and compelling words. Following, Sankichi uses another word –“transformed”, describing the image of a person who is so transformed that he is no longer recognizable, even to those close to him. Again Sankichi displays the images of the tragedy in the poem, but instead of describing the present, he reflects on his own memories and uses imagery to explain the scene. The last few stanzas restates Sankichi’s dissatisfaction towards the attitude of the people after the bombing which connects back to the first stanza: “Right beside the street people come and go, well-meaning but utterly indifferent, assaulted by the sun, attacked by the rain, covered over by dust,