Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

Nameless invasion Julie Otsuka examines how fear can cause people to alter their identities in her book When the Emperor was Divine. People alter as a result of fear because they may not be able to withstand the strain and stress. The family in the WWII set book is divided from one another. The novel tells the story of a Japanese American family’s ordeal in internment camps during World War Two. The father is arrested by the FBI because he is suspected of being a spy. The mother has to take care of her two children and move to the internment camp in Utah. After three years, the family is released from the internment camp; then they come back to their house and wait for the father’s return. However, after the father returns home thin and worn, the family—forever changed—attempts to piece together their …show more content…
The change of the father and the roles the mother and children play in the novel reveals the sufferings of Japanese Americans at that time vividly and draws attention to that history. After the Pearl Harbor Attack on December 7th 1941, the U.S. opened hostilities with Japan and the relationship between the two countries reached a tense situation. The profound influence of the war is that numerous Japanese started their sufferings and hardships in the next several years. At the start of the war, the American government took a series of measures aimed at Japanese Americans in the U.S. All the Japanese Americans, no matter who they were, adults or children, had been suspected spies. On the other hand, what is more significant, the namelessness of the characters also indicates the loss of their identities. Because they are Japanese American, they are different from the real American natives in their habits, world views and values. They live in an environment with mixed American and Japanese cultures. They are even obsessed with their Japanese identities in American

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