When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka

Emilie D. Schmaltz

Mrs. Rogers

L202 Period 6

1 March 2023

The Woman’s Character In her novel When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka never uses direct names to describe her characters. Instead, she uses terms such as the woman, the boy, the girl, and the husband; so that this family’s story can be applied to a variety of Japanese American families who were in the internment camps. Even the family’s old, adopted dog in the novel is referred to as White Dog. Small characters in the story are; however, given actual names, like the store clerk Joe Lundy or the family’s old maid. Through in-text evidence and characterization, one can put together how the characters grow and change throughout the story. Out of the family, the woman receives

Otsuka's characterization of the woman throughout her novel, displays the changing personality and perspective of the woman, due to her continuously changing circumstances and environment. A majority of the woman’s characterization appears in the first part of Otsuka’s novel, “Evacuation Order No. 19.” The first part of the novel consists of the woman preparing her house before the family has to leave for an internment camp. Which is where she and her family would be living for the next three years and five months. The characterization of the woman starts early on when Otsuka details the woman getting ready in a “nice red dress” (4) and how the woman was “careful not to let the ink darken her gloves”(4) before she heads out to the pharmacy where she purchases “a large jar of face cream” (4). The face cream, gloves, and dress enforce the idea that the woman cares about her appearance, and wants to look nice before she has to go into the public eye. Also that she does not want to visibly age, and is trying to slow

The woman darned socks by the window, she read, she made her children paper kites with tails woven from potato sack strings, she took a flower-arranging class. All because it was “something to do” (54). Compared to the previous parts where the woman is back home and seems to be a “busy bee,” she is now confined to a space with restricted freedom and opportunities. The woman’s character changes the longer the family spends at the internment camp. The woman shifts from having a variety of hobbies to keep her occupied, to staring out the family’s barrack window for four hours. The woman also remains in constant contact with her house key for all three years and five months. “Every morning, in the place where we had lived during the war, she had reached for the key as soon as she woke, just to make sure it was still there” (107). This shows that despite the unforgiving environment that the woman was in, she still had some form of hope. The woman wearing the key for three years and five months also shows that the woman had her priorities straight about what was still important in her life and that those priorities will remain close to her