Hiroshima

John Hersey

PHOTOGRAPH BY SHUNKICHI KIKUCHI/MAGNUM

A view of Hiroshima, in 1945, from a hill which rises in the eastern part of the city.

Name: ___________________ Period: _____

English 10 Honors

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 JOHN HERSEY, THE WRITER WHO LET
HIROSHIMA SPEAK FOR ITSELF
By Russell Shorto published in The New Yorker on August 31, 2016

PHOTOGRAPH BY DMITRI KESSEL / THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION / GETTY

John Hersey was thirty-two when The New Yorker published Hiroshima, his massively influential article on the atomic bombing.

Seventy years ago (1946), this magazine devoted its entire August 31st issue
to an article by John Hersey titled Hiroshima. It became a landmark in
journalism, in publishing, and in humanitys awareness of itself and its own
awful potential. It detailed the lives of six people who had survived the
American atomic attack on the Japanese city, which had taken place a year
earlier. Much reporting had been done in the aftermath of the bombing, most
of which was technical or philosophical, focusing on the power of the weapon
or on the wisdom of using it. In choosing instead to report on individual
victims, to follow the unfolding of their lives in minute detail from the
moment the bomb fell and as they struggled to exist through the ensuing
weeks, Hersey did something altogether different. He bore witness.
The issue of the magazine sold out at newsstands. The thirty-one-thousand-
word article was read over the radio; parts of it were excerpted in
newspapers; three million copies of it were sold in book form. It has been
in print ever since.

1. What differentiated Herseys article from others that were being written in
1946?

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Yet while Hersey, who was thirty-two at the time of publication, and who had
covered the war extensively for Time and Life, received accolades, and some
criticism, in the aftermath of Hiroshima, he remained somehow outside the
glare of the attention it generated. Likewise, for all the humanity of the
article, its author, who died in 1993, seems scarcely present in it; it
seems almost not to have an author. And the man who wrote what has been
called the most important work of journalism of the twentieth century, as
well as a shelf of best-selling novels and works of nonfiction, seems
largely forgotten today.

As it happens, one of John Herseys sons, Baird, is my brother-in-law.

Through the years, at holiday gatherings, we have chatted about his father.
With this anniversary in mind, we had a more purposeful conversation. I
asked Baird, who is a musician and composer living in upstate New York,
about the man his father was, about his approach to writing Hiroshima, and
about the enigma of his authorial persona.

My father had a very strong moral compass, Baird said. I think it was
because his parents were missionaries. He lived in China, where they were
doing Y.M.C.A. mission work, until he was eleven. Even though he wasnt a
religious personhe eventually reacted against being raised in that worldhe
had a strong sense of right and wrong, and humility, and that colored his
approach to Hiroshima.

Hersey was on a Navy ship on his way to Japan to report the story when he
fell ill and someone gave him books to read, one of which happened to be
Thornton Wilders The Bridge of San Luis Rey. It was a novel that traced
the stories of five people who are killed when a bridge collapses. It
struck my father that that would be a good vehicle for presenting the story
of the people who were subjected to the atomic bomb, Baird said. He told
me about getting the idea of using novelistic devices to structure his
reporting. He wanted to put faces and names to the story. Prior to that, we
had been at war with Japan, and everyone had this opinion of the Japanese.
He wanted to show their humanity in a way that people in this country could
connect toto convey the enormity of what had happened.

The structure of Hiroshima was one of the things that resonated with
readers. Its use of fictional devices, such as building to a suspenseful
moment with one character and then switching to another, was radical at the
time, and made it a precursor to the New Journalism of the nineteen-sixties
and seventies. Hersey himself said that the profundity of the nuclear
attack, and his consequent need to try to convey the reality of it to
readers, forced him outside of journalistic conventions. With journalism,
Hersey once said, the reader is always conscious of the person whos
writing it and explaining to you whats taken place. He said he wanted to
have the reader directly confronted by the characters, so he tried to
write the piece in such a way that, as he put it, my mediation would,
ideally, disappear.

The disappearing writer was not just a feature of the work itself but, in a
sense, of Herseys career. He was quite young when he had his success, but
it didnt go to his head, Baird told me. I think he found the acclaim and
attention to be hollow. As a result, the author of the biggest publishing

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sensation of its time was a virtual stranger to the world of publicity. He
never went on tour. He never wanted to flog his wares, as he said. He
didnt go on TV or radio, didnt give lectures. He only did two interviews
in his life. He was a member of the generation that developed the cult of
the authorpeople like Norman Mailer were doing The Dick Cavett Showbut
he didnt want any part of that.

2. Consider Herseys audience and purpose. Explain.

3. How did Hersey structure his article to accomplish his purpose?

Bairds memories of his father are of a private man, but not a recluse.
Hersey had a small circle of close friends, which included Lillian Hellman,
William Styron, Ralph Ellison, Jules Feiffer, and Anthony Lewis. He belonged
to civic organizations, spoke out against the Vietnam War, and taught
writing at Yale. But he was guarded about his work. He had this theory that
you should never talk about a book you were working on, Baird said. He
felt that writers would lose the energy of their stories by talking about
them. So we didnt even know what he was writing. Then there would be a
dinner after he had sent the manuscript to the publisher, and he would share
with the family what the book was about.

Baird was born after the publication of Hiroshima. His memories are of his
father at work on later books. They lived in Fairfield, Connecticut, and
Hersey wrote in a small cottage some distance from the house. I used to
climb a tree, knock on the window, and ask if he could come out. He was very
regular in his habits. Every morning he would write, in longhand, double-
spaced, so that he could make corrections. In the afternoons he would answer
correspondence. He got lots of mail, and there was only one kind of letter
he would not answer. If the name was spelled Hershey, it went in the trash
can.

Baird doesnt remember his father making a big deal about any of his work,
or his fame. He was very reserved, which I think he regretted, because he
had a loving and warm side, he said. If my parents were having a dinner
party and I couldnt sleep, hed come up and rub my back.

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In a perfect world, fathers exert a firm and wise influence on their
children. Perhaps that rarely happens. But Baird told me that his fathers
philosophy on work and the world coalesced for him in one conversation they
had. Baird was himself about the age his father had been when Hiroshima
was published. We were on Marthas Vineyard, where he always spent his
summers. I had built up a body of work as a musician. I had just had a
record come out that had gotten some attention but didnt break out. I was
in that phase of my career, trying to figure it out. I guess I had something
in me that pulled me toward wanting fame. I wanted to know how he had
managed things early in his career. And what he said, essentially, was you
cant look to the outside world to make you whole. That affected me
profoundly.

Herseys refusal to flog his wares continues in effect. His daughter, Brook
Hersey, a clinical psychologist living in Manhattan, who is his literary
executor, told me that when it comes to ancillary projects that people bring
to hermovie deals, prospective biographiesI have tried to make decisions
based on what I think he would have wanted, and that was to let his works
speak for themselves. As a result, she said, Ive always erred on the side
of saying no.

The slow fade in popular awareness of Hersey is surely in part a result of

that, as well as of the simple passage of time. But Herseys sensibility, so
at odds with todays, suited its era. The authorial anonymitythe humility
in Hiroshima made it the most respectful way to present the people Hersey
encountered in a post-nuclear city, and the clearest way to show Americans
what they had done.

4. Use details from the text to characterize Hersey.

KWL Chart Subject: Hiroshima

What do you KNOW WHAT do you want to know? What did you LEARN?

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Year Written:
Author:
Genre:

Chapters 1 & 2 (pgs. 1-41) Due Date: Monday, November 27th

Directions: Answer the following questions as you read Chapters 1 & 2. When necessary, give evidence from the text and cite
page numbers.

Define the following words as you read chapter 1:

1. Convivial

2. Hedonistic

3. Notorious

4. Philanthropy

5. Terminus

Define the following words as you read chapter 2:

1. Awry

2. Conflagration

3. Dilapidation

4. Laceration

5. Vortex

1. Use outside sources to explain the context in which the book was written.

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2. Explain John Herseys writing style and how he structures the text. (See Your Rhetorical Keystone.)

3. Use specific details to describe the situation in Hiroshima before the atomic bomb?

4. The following are the names of the six survivors Hersey focuses on in the text. For each survivor, record details that stand
out to you as you read each chapter.
Survivor Before the Bomb Chapter 1 A Noiseless Flash Chapter 2 The Fire
Reverend
Mr. Kiyoshi
Tanimoto

Mrs.
Hatsuyo
Nakamura

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Dr.
Masakazu
Fujii

Father
Wilhelm
Kleinsorge

Dr.
Terufumi
Sasaki

Miss
Toshinki
Sasaki

Which survivor(s) interests you the most? Why?

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5. Compare and Contrast: How is the aftermath of the atomic explosion similar to the aftermath of a natural disaster? How
are they dissimilar?

6. Based on what youve read thus far, what can you infer is Herseys view of the decision to drop the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima? Why?

Chapters 3 & 4 (pgs. 42-90) Due Date: Monday, December 11th

Directions: Answer the following questions as you read Chapters 3 & 4. When necessary, give evidence from the text and cite
page numbers.

Define the following words as you read chapter 3:

1. Benumbed

2. Moribund

3. Putrid

4. Succinct

5. Suppurate

Define the following words as you read chapter 4:

1. Cache

2. Capricious

3. Emanation

4. Malaise

5. Succumb
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1. Complete the chart below with descriptions of the survivors and changes that have occurred in their lives. Record details.

Survivor Chapter 3 Details are Being Investigated

Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi
Tanimoto

Mrs. Hatsuyo
Nakamura

Dr. Masakazu Fujii

Father Wilhelm
Kleinsorge

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

Miss Toshinki
Sasaki

2. Why is the title for Chapter 3 appropriate? Explain.

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3. How does Mr. Tanimoto describe the Japanese Emperors surrender and notice to the Japanese people?

4. How does Dr. Sasaki deal with the fatalities at the Red Cross Hospital? Is that a typically Japanese way of handling
death? Explain.

5. Hersey creates vivid images for the reader in Chapter 3. Choose two images that had the greatest impact on you and
explain why. In addition, complete a rhetorical analysis of the image.

Image Explanation Rhetorical Analysis

(pg. #)

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6. For each survivor, record details that are relevant as you read Chapter 4.

Survivor Chapter 4: Panic Grass and Feverfew

Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi
Tanimoto

Mrs. Hatsuyo
Nakamura

Dr. Masakazu Fujii

Father Wilhelm
Kleinsorge

Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

Miss Toshinki
Sasaki

7. What is the significance of the title of Chapter Four?

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8. When Father Kleinsorge returns to Hiroshima in August, what does he find?

9. What were some of the symptoms of the mysterious, capricious disease which was called radiation disease? Identify at
least two.

10. What are the three stages of radiation sickness?

Stage 1:

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Stage 2:

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Stage 3:

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