Otsuka's Purpose

In the book “When the Emperor was Divine” there are many true events that occurred during the 1940’s. Many Japanese families had to live in Internment camps; in the novel, there was one family that the author told the story around. While this family was in these internment camps, they had to face many changes and overcome many hardships. It seems to be a tough time for the family living in those conditions left a permanent and damaging image in their minds. While this family spent three years of their lives in this environment, it seems to have taken a emotional and physical toll on them. It’s stories like “When the Emperor was divine” that America tries to hide and avoid but Julie Otsuka made sure that the reader got to get a feel of what it was really like for the Japanese living during these times.

After reading the book “When the Emperor was divine” it was obvious that Julie Otsuka had a clear purpose for writing this book. She wanted to show people the affect that the internment camps really had on the Japanese. She goes into detail about the physical and emotional changes that the characters experience. For instance, while the woman was in the internment camps she experienced a lot of physical and emotional changes.  The woman becomes depressed and her physical appearance starts to change. Her and her soon notices that changes that are going on in her face.

She stood in front of the mirror tracing the lines along her forehead and neck with her finger. “Is it the light.” She asked, “or are there bags under my eyes? “There’s bags.” She pointed to a wrinkle by her mouth. “See This?” He nodded.

I thought this quote was important because it really showed how much of a physical change that the internment camps caused for the woman. Throughout the book, Julie Otsuka uses much detail to describe many of the families hardships during their time spent in these camps. With Otsuka’s descriptive detail, the reader can almost picture their selves in the families’ shoes but can never relate. It would be hard to even imagine what many Japanese families went through but Otsuka gives readers an idea of what society was trying to hide.