Struggles are a common part of everyday life. However, dislike of a specific group can lead them to endure awful conditions. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, people became suspicious of Japanese Americans. This fear led to the family in the story being forced to live in harsh conditions for several years. Even after the war, their lives had changed drastically because of the suffering they endured and the animosity towards the Japanese. In “When the Emperor was Divine” Julie Otsuka uses animals as symbols that reflect the family’s experience in a Japanese internment camp to show that loss and cruelty can result from fear and obedience.
The ways the family’s pets were affected by the order for the government to manage all Japanese people shows
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One day while at the camp, the boy finds a turtle, and he decides to keep it. He places it in a box but notices the turtle scratching at the sides. The boy, not wanting his new pet to escape, covers the box and places a rock on top. A few days afterwards, he finds his sister outside and “[o]n the ground beside her lay the tortoise. Its head and legs were tucked up inside its shell and it was not moving” (Otsuka 82). The boy feared that the turtle would escape and took the extreme measure of trapping it in a place that was inescapable. This unnecessary precaution proved fatal once he forgot about what he had done and the turtle died from either dehydration or starvation. This is similar to how many Japanese, including the family, were rounded up and put in camps. It was an extreme decision that would ruin the lives of the family members, as did the boy’s decision for the turtle. Even when allowed to return home, life was very different for the family. The boy recalls how back in the camps he used to imagine what it would be like to return home. One thing he recalls imagining were, “little white dogs on long leashes with their noses pressed hard to the ground” (Otsuka 126). The boy dreamed everything would be the same when he came back. However, just like the white dog he once knew, his family’s way of life from before