Hersey writes, "And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see" (2).
Focus on your chosen character's experiences to interpret this quote. How does this character live "a dozen lives" and what does this character overcome in the act of surviving? Write a minimum of 2 paragraphs and use at least 3 textual quotes to support your answer. Make sure you use MLA citations for each quote.
Response Due: Monday, November 29. Worth: 10 points
Dr. Masakazu “lived a dozen lives” because he ran around and was a life saver for so many people. Within the short period of time he put others before himself. Dr. Masakazu fetched people who were hurt “He worked the boat upstream to the most crowded part of the park and began to ferry the wounded.”(37). From place to place he was pulling people out from debris and making sure they are okay “He enlisted the help of some of the others under the bridge and freed both of them.”(24).
ReplyDeleteDr. Masakazu was on of only a slim amount of doctors who was either alive or not wounded to the point where they could not work. He tried his best but because of these factors many died who shouldn’t have. “… many citizens who were hurt went untended and why so many who might have lived die.”(24). Despite all of this he still gave out what he could find of the means for others to survive he gave bandages to the priests and such.
-Kaitlyn Wallace
ReplyDeleteMr. Tanimoto, which is my character of choice, I think has lived "a dozen lives" because he survived the bomb for one, and continues to go through a lot, even after the bomb exploded. Buildings were catching on fire, and collapsing on anyone who stood under them at the time when they could no longer support its structure. And Mr. Tanimoto, although had cuts and bruises, got through a lot. He actually started to help the people that were very badly hurt.
Which brings me to him overcoming the act of survival. In times like these, people have to fend for themselves. And the ones who can't, usually die. But Mr. Tanimoto not only cared for himself, but many others. He still had respect for the people who lost their lives, when he saw a boat that he could use to get people across the river, he apologized to 5 dead men among the boat. "Please forgive me for taking this boat. I must use it for others, who are alive."(37) saying quietly as he pulled the heavy boat towards the river. Mr. Tanimoto took charge even before his idea of boating people across the river though. He had others who were not very badly injured get the less fortunate ones rice, and water. Which I think gave many of them hope.
ALthough Mr. Tanimoto was not able to help everyone he saw who was injured, he had prayed for them as he ran past to save others. "God help them and take them out of the fire."(30). I realized how much he cared for others, and never worried about how he was going to get himself away from all of this. He stuck around for the safety of his friends, and even strangers, because he was ashamed of being unhurt. Mr. Tanimoto is a dedicated man, and a pro in the act of survival. A woman he knew asked if he could find her husband, because their child had died, and even though Mr. Tanimoto knew he would never find him, he simply said "I'll try."(41). So to me, he deserves "a dozen lives", for what he did in the first 2 chapters of this book.
I think “living a dozen lives” is referring to the terrors of death. What I mean by this is that in one life we are supposed to experience death once. The people in Hiroshima during the bombing experienced a dozen if not more lives. “There he saw hundreds of people so badly wounded they could not get up to go from the burning city” (31). “I am lying here I can’t move my leg is cut off” (32). These are just two examples of the horror that occurred that day. Some people were lucky and survived others were as fortunate not.
ReplyDeleteThe character I have chosen is Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura. There are many reasons that I feel Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura has lived a dozen lives. One is that she has experienced so much death. For example after the bomb hit walking down the street she saw this terrible scene: “The house next door, which its owner had been tearing down to make way for a fire lane, was now very thoroughly torn down; its owner lay dead” (20). This is only one example of the terrible thing s she witnessed. No person should have to see such terrible images in one life. It is for that reason that Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura has lived a dozen lives
This quote to me doesn't mean the survival of just one character. I believe it means the survival of the whole city of Hiroshima. Mr. Tanimoto was the one of the only people that came out of the destroyed city uninjured. As soon as the blast ended he immediately began to help people and barely worried about himself. He even ran to the center of the blast to search for his family. When he encountered burn victims in need of water, "Mr. Tanimoto found a basin in a nearby street and located a water tap that still worked in the crushed shell of a house, and he began carrying water to the suffering strangers."(31). After he found his wife and infant daughter, "he wanted to see his church and to take care of the people of his Neighborhood Association."(31). Tanimoto was risking his life to help others. In the first two chapters, he seemed to help everyone, and in my eyes it was like him trying to save as much of Hiroshima as he could so the city could survive.
ReplyDeleteMr. Tanimoto in my eyes lived a dozen lives. I believe that all the horrible things he saw was like what a dozen people would see in a life time. "The eyebrows of some were burned off and skin hung from their faces and hands. Others, because of pain, held their arms up as if they were carrying something in both hands. Some were vomiting as they walked. Many were naked or in shreds of clothing."(29). Thats how I believe Mr. Tanimoto lived a dozen lives.
My character that i'm focusing on is Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto. He was a kind Methodist pastor and helped many people in the days of the incident. He survived the blast but died years later from radiation poisoning. This happened because of helping people cross a river to a park that brought them to safety. He saw much death and could do little to help them.
ReplyDeleteHe lived many lives because he saw the end of it more then one of twice. For example when the bomb first went off he only had seconds to react before the blast wave burned him. "Mr. Tanimoto took four or five steps and threw himself between two big rocks."(pg 5) If it wasn't for that he would of most likely died hours later from burns like the thousands of others that had in that second of the blast. Thanks to him being under next to a rock he wasn't under a house like his friend who had rushed to his.
He had to over come many obsticals, like dealing with the fact that his family may or may not be dead. Or with the long term affect of him not having a home. Also one that he isn't ever aware of which would be the radiation poisoning. But he still helped hundreds cross the river to safety.
Worm1212:
ReplyDeleteMr. Tanimoto is my character of choice. I think he has lived a dozen lives because he survives the bomb, and also tries to help as many people as possible. He takes a boat from 5 men that have died, and says, "Please forgive me for taking this boat" (37). This shows that Mr. Tanimoto is a leader and has respect for others.
Mr. Tanimoto starts talking to Mrs. Kamai, a woman he knows, and she asks him if he can find her husband. Mr. Tanimoto knew that he wouldn't be able to find her husband, but he says, "I'll try." (41). This shows that he is looking out for her and he is trying to keep her hope alive.
Mr. Tanimoto was ashamed that he was unhurt by the bomb. So, he tries to save and help as many people as possible. Although he was not able to help every person he encountered, as he ran past people that were yelling for help, he said, "God help them and take them out of the fire." (30). Mr. Tanimoto cares for other people, and doesn't care about what could happen to him. He just wants to help others because he feels guilty for being uninjured.
Mr.Tanimoto "lived a dozen lives" because he put so many other people's needs in front of his own. He was own of the very few people who survived the atomic bomb. Soon after the bomb was dropped, he started caring for others. He used the boat to bring strangers to safety. Most people in this situation would not worry about strangers and only care for themselves, but not Mr.Tanimoto. He got rice for those who were starving and "Mr.Tanimoto organized the lightly wounded women of his neighborhood to cook"(40).Also, he got water for the strangers who were very thirsty. "Mr. Tanimoto found a basin in a nearby street and located a water tap that still worked in the crushed shell of a house, and he began carrying water to the suffering strangers"(31).
ReplyDeleteHe even cared for those who were already dead. "Please forgive me for taking this boat. I must use it for others, who are alive."(37). He saw a lot of horrible things that I don't think even close to a dozen people have seen. Mr.Tanimoto was strong throughout the situation and he didn't give up on anyone. Alot of people would have gave up and broken down under stress, but he didn't.By surviving, he got the chance to help others. I think that Mr.Tanimoto lived a dozen lives because he saved more than a dozen lives.
Living a "Dozen Lives" to me means not only surviving, but seeing many others die in the wake of what happened, when something catastrophic happens you literally feel like you lived and died mulitiple times over by the time it is done and becomes history. Many of the characters in the book really did feel like they lived a dozen lives after the bomb dropped because the death and despair they witnessed. The charater I'm foucusing on is Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, who is a young surgeon that has never dealt with anything as horrific as his next hours at the hospital. "...he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding,..."(26).
ReplyDeleteLife had honestly ceased to exsist to him in the small span of time in which the bomb dropped." He was one step beyond an open window when the light of the bomb was reflected,... He ducked down on one knee and said to himself, as only a Japanese would , 'Sasaki, gambare! Be Brave!'"(14). When he got up to suvey his surroundings he was completely overwhelemed. "The hospital was in horrible confusion...blood was spattered on the walls and floors, instruments were everywhere, many of the patients were running about screaming, many more lay dead. (A colleage working in the laboratory was dead; ...Sasaki's patient, whom he had just left a few moments before...was also dead.)Dr. Sasaki found himself the only doctor in the hospital who was unhurt"(15). His private life was forgotten for a very long time his world had literally become hell on earth.
The character I have chosen is Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura. Her husband was a tailor and had died in the army. She has three children, a ten, eight, and a five year old. She lives “a dozen lives” because she survived the bombing, while many of her neighbors had died. Also, she lived through the fact that her husband had died and she has to support her children all on her own. Fortunately, neither she nor her children were hurt or injured because in the story it says, “The debris did not cover her deeply,” (9) and “The children were filthy and bruised, but none of them had a single cut or scratch” (19).
ReplyDeleteMrs. Nakamura overcomes a few things in things in the act of surviving. She is relieved the fact that all of her children had survived as well. Even though Mrs. Nakamura had no bandages to help Mrs. Nakamoto’s baby, she “. . . crawled into the remains of her house again and pulled out some white cloth that she had been using in her work as a seamstress, ripped it into strips, and gave it to Mrs. Nakamoto” (20). Also, she was one of the first people to arrive in Asano Park. It says in the text that, “This private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees. . .” (35). For some unknown reason, Mrs. Nakamura and her family kept vomiting and were nauseated and when they tried to eat some pumpkin, they couldn’t keep it in their stomachs. Also, later that day, a woman who was sitting by them, who had no visible wounds or burns had died. Therefore, Mrs. Nakamura has been living a rough life, without a husband, little money, and now sickness, so she has lived “a dozen lives.”
I'm focusing on Mrs. Nakamura, she is a kind strong-willed mother. She cares strongly for her kids, and it shows throughout the book. "got her three children-...walked them to the military area known as ..."(6). She takes her kids to the military base to avoid the atomic bomb. As soon as she returns home though, she turns on the radio in order to listen to the alerts, to protect her children.
ReplyDeleteShe has lived many lives because she saw her neighbor tearing his house apart, in the first chapter "As Mrs. Nakamura stood watching her neighbor, everything flashed whiter... She had ever seen."(8). Then she sees the bomb hit, and with barely any time to move, except a single step, she was thrown across the room. Next she sees her children hurried under debris, shooken up she still gets up, and hurries to help them. Finally, Mrs. Nakamura takes of into the woods, with supplies to get her by. "So Mrs. Nakamura started out for Asano Park...suitcase of things she cached in her air-raid shelter."(20).
This shows Mrs. Nakamura is brave, and she's not giving up although it's a slight chance she will live.
bluesky
ReplyDeleteThe character I choose is Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura and she "lived a dozen lives" because she not only had to raise her 3 children on her own as a single mother, but she had to witness so many deaths. Her children meant the world to her, and she always took precautions to make sure her children weren't going to be in harm’s way. With a warning being announced on the radio to evacuate the area she "got her three children out of bed and dressed them and walked with them to the military area known as the East Parade Ground, on the northeast edge of the city" (6). Out of dangers way she got a few peaceful hours of sleep. Upon the return to their house there had been a bombing in which she watched her children get buried head deep in debris "she started frantically to clawed her way toward the baby, she could see or hear nothing of her other children" (9).
Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura’s husband joined the army after their third child was born, months passed without hearing anything from him, in which she found out he passed away; this was just the beginning to her heart brakes. Taking the children outside to get out of the wreckage, she noticed the next door neighbor laying their dead. The neighbor Mrs. Hataya yelled nervously “Run away with me to the woods in Asano Park- and estate, by the Kyo River not far off, belonging to the wealthy Asano family who once owned the Toyo Kisen Kaisha Steamship line” (20). Without hesitation they took off for cover, sadly witnessing all the destroyed place, dying/dead people, and horrible place Hiroshima has turned into.
I chose to focus on Dr. Masakazu Fujii. He was a prosperous physician who undressed down to his underwear due to the heat and had just gone out on his porch to read the paper when the bomb dropped. He owned a private, single-doctor hospital and lived there too. The building was perched beside and over the water of the Kyo River and contained 30 rooms for patients and their kinfolk. The structure rested two-thirds on the land, one-third on piles over the tidal waters of the Kyo. His niece was living with him. His wife and children were safe living elsewhere. He only had a couple of patients to take care of.
ReplyDeleteWhen he saw the flash of the bomb, he began to rise to his feet. "In that moment (he was 1,550 yards from the center), the hospital leaned behind his rising and, with a terrible ripping noise, toppled into the river."(10) The doctor unfortunately ended up in the water and was squeezed between two long timbers in a V across his chest so that he could not move. "The remains of his hospital were all around him in a mad assortment of splintered lumber and materials for the relief of pain. His left shoulder hurt terribly. His glasses were gone."(11)
He knew he had to get out of the water before the tide rose and, with great difficulty, was finally able to get out. "He could see only fuzzily without his glasses, but he could see enough to be amazed at the number of houses that were down all around."(23) He got help and was able to rescue some people, but never saw his niece again. Most of his nurses and the two patients in his hospital died. Dr. Fujii was ashamed of his appearance because he felt like he looked like a beggar, dressed as he was in nothing but torn and bloody underwear. He and two of his nurses were able to make their way to some relatives homes and were able to get first-aid materials he had stored there. While trying to get to his family's home, "many people walked in the streets, but a great number sat and lay on the pavement, vomited, waited for death, and died. The number of corpses on the way to Nagatsuka was more and more puzzling."(14) When he was finally able to make it to his family's house, its roof had fallen in and the windows were all broken. Dr. Fujii didn't realize it right away, but later after he had time to think about it, he realized that in the act of survival after the bomb dropped, he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see.
dukefan04
ReplyDeleteDr. Masakazu "lives a dozen lives" because he was a doctor and saved many people. He was "being prosperous, and at the time not too busy".(9).This quote is another way that he lived a sozen lives. It's saying that around the time before the bomb he lived his life good and not bad. When the bomb went off he went around helping people.
In the act of surviving he overcomes selfishness. he use to sleep in and take his time getting up, but now he had to go out and help people. "His hospital was no longer on the bank of the Kyo River, it was in the river". (22) If that happened to some of the people aroud here I don't think that those peopole would still be working. They wouls give up and be selfish.
When Hersey says "lived a dozen lives" I don't think he means saved a dozen lives. When he says that I believe he means each had gone through the pain, suffering, and agony of a dozen lives. The rest of the quote which was "saw more death than he ever thought he would see." Even though they had lived a dozen lives, they still saw more death than any of the dozen lives should have seen. The character I'm focussing on, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, has experiences this death and suffering.
ReplyDelete"As Mrs. Nakamura started frantically to claw her way toward the baby, she could see or hear nothing of her other children" is a horrible experience for a mother that they should never experience.(9) She probably thought her other two children were dead when she didn't hear them. No mother should go through that kind of suffering. Fortunately, the other two children weren't dead.
Just when the family is reunited, everything is on fire and they're all confused. "Its owner, who had been sacrificing his home for the community's safety, lay dead." is one of the first sights they see when they are finally out of the debris of their house, a dead man and his torn down house.(20) It may only be one dead body, but along the way to Asano Park they probably saw a lot more. This whole ordeal, their house falling down, seeing their neighbor that was moments ago alive and tearing down his house, now laid dead was more than likely traumatizing for the whole lot of them.
The Nakamura family was thirsty and the only water they could have was from a river "They all felt terribly thirsty, and they drank from the river. At once they were nauseated and began vomiting, and they retched the whole day.", and the water that they desperately needed had made them sick.(35) This later causes problems for them when they need to eat, but they vomit that too. These poor people can't drink or eat without vomiting which makes the current situation they're in ten times worse.
Mrs. Matsuyo Nakamura is the character I choose and she “lived a dozen lives” because of all the tragedy she was put through her life. For example, she lost her husband in the army and was forced to raise her 3 children on her own. Toshio- 10 years old, Yaeko-8 years old, and Myeko- 5 years old. After getting the kids up and dressed she would walk to the northeast side of the city. “She unrolled some mats and the children could lay down on them” (7). The bomb was being dropped everywhere in Hiroshima and she always follows the evacuation notifications on the radio. However, suddenly one day a bomb dropped without notification, blowing debris everywhere and burring the children.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Matsuyo Nakamura walks outside to take on the damage down to her neighborhood. Her next door neighbor Mrs. Nakamoto “came across the street with her head all bloody, and that her baby was badly cut; did Mrs. Nakamura has any bandages?” (20) While running off with Mrs. Hataya to “the woods in Asano Park” (20). When they ran and cut through the woods they saw dead bodies, destroyed houses and bloody people. Scaring the children and making memories that will never be forgotten. They finally found a safe place to stay in Asano Park for now.