When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka

In the novel “When the Emperor was Divine” by Julie Otsuka, the aftermath of Pearl Harbor left a bad outlook on Japanese Americans, causing most to be put into internment camps under horrible conditions. The Japanese American family consists of a father, mother, son, and daughter. The father was the first one taken, he was taken in a bathrobe and slippers, he was put in an internment camp in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Later on, the mother, daughter, and son were taken to an internment camp in Topaz, Utah, they were piled into a crowded train that stunk of sweat and vomit, the only hope they had was the possibility of getting out and returning to a normal life. The mother and daughter were just trying to survive, the son, on the other hand, liked

Every time the boy had a bad dream, his father would always come to comfort him and calm him down. When the boy would wake up screaming from a terrifying dream, his father would come into his room, sit on the bed with him, and help soothe him back to sleep. “Whenever the boy had woken up screaming from dark scary dreams, his father had come into his room and sat down on the edge of his bed and smoothed down the boy’s short black hair. ‘Hush, Puppy,’ he whispered, “it’s all right”. Here I am” (Otsuka 64). Even when the boy had night terrors, thinking of his father helped him to feel better about being in the internment camp because it brought him a sense of joy thinking about how his father was always there for him. But now that his father is gone, all he can think about is his father, the boy just wants life to go back to normal, the same house and the whole family together. The camps were lonely and it was hard to make friends. The boy felt isolated away from his old friends back home, in order to make up for the loneliness he was feeling, he found a tortoise and made it a friend. He didn’t want his friend to leave, so he put it in a wooden box and covered the top. Having a friend to keep him company made the camp seem less miserable. But, during the nighttime, the boy thought he could hear his new friends claws scrabbling against the box trying to find a way out. “Sometimes, in his dreams, he could hear its claws scrabbling against the side of the box.” (Otsuka 60). When the boy has a bad dream, his father is usually there to comfort him, but since they were put into different internment camps, his father isn’t there to calm him down and sit with him. The friend that the boy had made when he heard the claws scrabbling, his father wasn’t there to help him go back to sleep. The memories that