(no subject)
Does Otsuka's chapter titles engage you, making you want to know more? Discuss Otsuka’s use of italics. What are these shifts in typography meant to connote? Which chapter(s) engaged/disengaged your interest? Ultimately,the U.S. government deemed the Japanese men, women, and children, too, as the enemy race. Of those relocated to internment camps, the majority were children. Even during war time, were concentration camps and the A-bombs (to follow) against the Japanese necessities? Why do we, Americans,
tend to view such atrocities as just evidence of "mob mentality?"
I thought as a whole this book was phenomenal. The titles of the chapters draw you in with their direct/straight to the point/short language. Going with that same principal there was one chapter title I thought could have been more direct...The chapter, "First Night" is only about sex. It makes a grand total of less than 4 pages and nothing outside of sex is described...Considering a whole night typically runs the range of 10-12 hours and sex is a fairly short enterprise..It would make more sense to just call it, "Sex."
Otsuka's use of Italics on the other hand seem to be inner dialogue/thought processes...Memory rolled back like a perfect photograph. The rest of the type face reads like spoken word and creates a sort of tangible distance in that one speaker is the voice of everyone in this novel. The italics come off as more private and also make the distance of non-Italics more compelling. While the non-italics complete the feat of a no nonsense approach simply stating, "This is how it was".....The italics are like ghosts rising up, almost as if to ensure the relevancy...That these people had individual lives worth remembering and they were not lost in history. Their pain and experience becomes relatable this way through the use of individual voice.
The U.S. use of interment camps was utterly ridiculous. As Otsuka captures the unreal paranoia of the times on page 35, "We were an unbeatable unstoppable economic machine and if our progress was not checked the entire western United States would soon become the next Asiatic outpost and colony." Not even Japanese U.S. citizens were free from the backlash of the internment camps. 62% were in fact U.S. Citizens. There is even an iconic photograph of a Japanese American decked in uniform and medals he won in the previous World War. There's nothing to call this behavior but herd or Mob mentality. America had a rich sense of Xenophobia and Racism up until recently. To this day that department could use some work, but there's a reason not even the Bush/Cheney regime created internment camps for all Americans of Middle Eastern Decent...It's barbaric and lacks a logical framework. Some people have still not evolved but most have. Group think still operates in our society but the primary Group Think is progressive and it's not without checks and balances. Right wing conservatives have been losing their edge and relevancy and we've become far more educated as a society thanks to growing technology. When exact information is hard to come by we are more reliant on hearsay, Groupthink or superstition. Today we are left far more often to come to our own conclusions however many clicks away.
As far as the chapters that spoke to me...I found the first and second chapters the most heartbreaking since these are young girls full of so much hope and wonderlust. They think they have this amazing life ahead of them...That it will be different and exciting and beautiful. There's so much deception used to get these young girls to move from their home country. They think their future husbands are these young and handsome men with beautiful handwriting and ways with words...But in reality the photographs they receive are over twenty years old and these letters have been written by professionals. These Men are the same age as their fathers but often more cruel and far more dishonest about who they are: Their profession, their thought process, their expectations..etc...
The level of disillusionment and disappointment comes off so cruel. I think it would be easier to read about a POW than some of these young girls because everyone has an idea of what it means to a prisoner of war. There are no surprises. Had these girls known half of what they were getting into, the suffering would have been easier to bare...both as the reader and the one experiencing the experience. But as it was these girls were basically children essentially sold off by their families, with this romanticized vision of Courtship vs. the slave labor reality. A lot of these girls were worked like dogs in the fields or even sold into Prostitution by their new American husbands.
The chapter, "Whites" I also found highly relateable when Otsuka talks about disassociation on page 37: "We cooked for them. We cleaned for them. We helped them chop wood. But it was not we who were cooking and cleaning and chopping, it was somebody else. And often our husbands did not even notice we'd disappeared." I think a lot of people must feel it in some sense. The soul-crushing 9-5, going through the motions because it's what's expected but not really a part of the process at all.
tend to view such atrocities as just evidence of "mob mentality?"
I thought as a whole this book was phenomenal. The titles of the chapters draw you in with their direct/straight to the point/short language. Going with that same principal there was one chapter title I thought could have been more direct...The chapter, "First Night" is only about sex. It makes a grand total of less than 4 pages and nothing outside of sex is described...Considering a whole night typically runs the range of 10-12 hours and sex is a fairly short enterprise..It would make more sense to just call it, "Sex."
Otsuka's use of Italics on the other hand seem to be inner dialogue/thought processes...Memory rolled back like a perfect photograph. The rest of the type face reads like spoken word and creates a sort of tangible distance in that one speaker is the voice of everyone in this novel. The italics come off as more private and also make the distance of non-Italics more compelling. While the non-italics complete the feat of a no nonsense approach simply stating, "This is how it was".....The italics are like ghosts rising up, almost as if to ensure the relevancy...That these people had individual lives worth remembering and they were not lost in history. Their pain and experience becomes relatable this way through the use of individual voice.
The U.S. use of interment camps was utterly ridiculous. As Otsuka captures the unreal paranoia of the times on page 35, "We were an unbeatable unstoppable economic machine and if our progress was not checked the entire western United States would soon become the next Asiatic outpost and colony." Not even Japanese U.S. citizens were free from the backlash of the internment camps. 62% were in fact U.S. Citizens. There is even an iconic photograph of a Japanese American decked in uniform and medals he won in the previous World War. There's nothing to call this behavior but herd or Mob mentality. America had a rich sense of Xenophobia and Racism up until recently. To this day that department could use some work, but there's a reason not even the Bush/Cheney regime created internment camps for all Americans of Middle Eastern Decent...It's barbaric and lacks a logical framework. Some people have still not evolved but most have. Group think still operates in our society but the primary Group Think is progressive and it's not without checks and balances. Right wing conservatives have been losing their edge and relevancy and we've become far more educated as a society thanks to growing technology. When exact information is hard to come by we are more reliant on hearsay, Groupthink or superstition. Today we are left far more often to come to our own conclusions however many clicks away.
As far as the chapters that spoke to me...I found the first and second chapters the most heartbreaking since these are young girls full of so much hope and wonderlust. They think they have this amazing life ahead of them...That it will be different and exciting and beautiful. There's so much deception used to get these young girls to move from their home country. They think their future husbands are these young and handsome men with beautiful handwriting and ways with words...But in reality the photographs they receive are over twenty years old and these letters have been written by professionals. These Men are the same age as their fathers but often more cruel and far more dishonest about who they are: Their profession, their thought process, their expectations..etc...
The level of disillusionment and disappointment comes off so cruel. I think it would be easier to read about a POW than some of these young girls because everyone has an idea of what it means to a prisoner of war. There are no surprises. Had these girls known half of what they were getting into, the suffering would have been easier to bare...both as the reader and the one experiencing the experience. But as it was these girls were basically children essentially sold off by their families, with this romanticized vision of Courtship vs. the slave labor reality. A lot of these girls were worked like dogs in the fields or even sold into Prostitution by their new American husbands.
The chapter, "Whites" I also found highly relateable when Otsuka talks about disassociation on page 37: "We cooked for them. We cleaned for them. We helped them chop wood. But it was not we who were cooking and cleaning and chopping, it was somebody else. And often our husbands did not even notice we'd disappeared." I think a lot of people must feel it in some sense. The soul-crushing 9-5, going through the motions because it's what's expected but not really a part of the process at all.