What Is The Theme Of When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka

In When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka, Otsuka describes a tragedy through the views of a Japanese-American family. The family is evicted from their home because of wartime hysteria and paranoia after Pearl Harbor, and shipped like cargo to a political prison where they sleep in hastily built barracks and only have the bare necessities to survive. There is no privacy, whether it be in the communal bathrooms or getting to know more about a family’s business than you wanted to because of the almost non-existent walls. If you thought that the living conditions couldn’t get any worse, the Topaz Relocation Center is in the middle of a desert in Utah with extreme heat and dust storms in the warm months, and deep snow, blizzards, and cold

Furthermore, Otsuka’s writing is often very plain and emotionless in order to make the emotional moments stand out, such as putting down her dog with a straight face on, and then having to leave her cozy him and telling the kids that they are going on a “trip,” which was really difficult to do. In addition, she employed a variety of anecdotes such as vignettes, poems, and allusions to add depth to the story. The main themes in the book that stood out to me were hope and grit. No matter how unfairly they were treated, the family showed courage, resilience, and resolve to overcome the situation. These two themes are complementary because their hope gives them grit and their grit lets them hold onto their hope. Because the family is uncertain about their future, they persevere through the present suffering

If you are hopeful, then that is great because you are able to see the good in a situation no matter how difficult it is, and that drop of hope can be shared with other people so that they then have hope. Hope carries us through challenges and prevents fear of the unknown, such as in the book when the family hoped for a better tomorrow, essentially ignoring the fact that their lives could dramatically change for the worse at any given moment. The arguments in this novel relate to my life in many ways. Grit is prevalent in my everyday life because when I have a rough day at school, I cannot linger on the past, but I must rather use the past as a learning experience to help me overcome many more obstacles in the future. Hope is very important in my life, especially when my Grandpa underwent heart surgery. When he underwent that surgery, I was afraid of what would happen, but hoping for the best kept me optimistic. Simply applying hope to my thought process changed my outlook on the situation. To tie my personal connections back to the book, I am going to end with this profound and meaningful