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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in After Darkness, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Dangers of Nationalism
Isolation and Trauma
Kindness, Compassion, and Selflessness
Racism, Xenophobia, and Division
Guilt and Atonement
Summary
Analysis
The protagonist, Dr. Ibaraki, travels inland in a carriage. He describes the unfamiliar landscape. He is traveling through widespread farmland, seeing crops and animals but no people. He sees his reflection in the window and notices that he looks unkempt and sleep-deprived—he hasn’t showered since he was at Harvey Camp three days prior. Dr. Ibaraki remembers gathering with 40 other Japanese men early that morning in Adelaide to board the train to their new camp in Southern Australia.
The novel opens with the harsh conditions of Ibaraki’s journey towards internment. The fact that he and the other men have been traveling for days without a shower indicates the dehumanizing conditions of internment. Furthermore, the size of the group of men indicates how large the system of internment is.
Themes
At the Murray Bridge train stop, Dr. Ibaraki sees a white woman with her three-year-old daughter, who reminds him of his niece. As the train pulls away, the woman spits on the window and utters a hateful slur against Japanese people. Dr. Ibaraki notes the hate in her face.
Ibaraki’s encounter with the white woman at the train stop serves to demonstrates the deep-seated anti-Japanese racism that existed in Australia in the 1940s.
Themes
The train arrives at the Barmera stop that evening. Soldiers greet the men and lead them to Loveday Camp. Dr. Ibaraki has more luggage than most of the other men and falls to the back of the group. One of the men falls to the ground, and Ibaraki rushes to examine him. Another man who knows the sick man tells Dr. Ibaraki that almost everyone got sick on the ship and that many died. One of the guards takes the man who fell to the hospital. The group arrives at Loveday Camp. When an officer interviews Dr. Ibaraki, he tells the officer that he is a doctor and that he has been in Australia since 1938. When the officer asks the protagonist about his marital status, the protagonist hesitates and then tells the officer that his wife is in Tokyo.
The fact that so many men fell ill or died on the ship emphasizes the harsh conditions that Australian officials subjected upon internees. At the camp, Ibaraki’s reluctance to answer the officer’s question about his wife’s whereabouts indicates that Ibaraki and his wife have a tense relationship.
Themes
Dr. Ibaraki is subjected to a medical examination before entering the camp. He finds the examination unnecessarily humiliating, as he is naked. After the medical examination, as Dr. Ibaraki and a group of men wait outside the camp, they notice the guard towers on the edge of the camp and discuss how they are always being watched. An officer leads the men through the camp to their compound. There, they meet Mori, the mayor of the compound, and Mr. Yamada, the mayor’s deputy. Mr. Yamada leads Dr. Ibaraki to his quarters. Mr. Yamada tells Dr. Ibaraki that Harada Yasutaro told him about Dr. Ibaraki. The doctor is pleased to hear that his friend Harada is at the camp. Yamada shows Dr. Ibaraki to his bed in Yamada’s tent and tells him that he is glad to have another educated man around.
The humiliation of the examination is another example of the dehumanization in the Loveday Camp. At the same time, the fact that Mori and Yamada are the mayor and deputy of the camp shows that internment camps had a certain kind of internal social organization. Furthermore, Yamada’s excitement to have another “educated” man around demonstrates his internal class-related biases.
Themes
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Dr. Ibaraki wakes early the next morning, sweating from the heat. He walks around the camp, examining its layout. He gathers that, aside from the Japanese men in two sections of the compound, there are Italians and Germans in the other two sections. He remembers a letter that he received the week before from his mother giving him news of the family, though censors had blocked out some of the information about his brother, Nobuhiro, in the army. Before the doctor was arrested, his mother had urged him to return to Japan. Dr. Ibaraki finds a Buddhist altar in the camp and kneels before it.
As Dr. Ibaraki walks around the camp and sees different sections housing German and Italian internees, it becomes clear that Australia has interned not just Japanese residents but also people from other countries—countries that opposed the Allied powers during World War II. What’s more, the fact that the Japanese, German, and Italian residents are separated from each other hints at the internal division within the camp itself. This is a division that Ibaraki will most likely have to reckon with as he navigates life in the camp. Lastly, readers can intuit from Nobuhiro’s involvement in the Japanese army that Ibaraki has a personal connection to the war and perhaps even to Japan’s nationalist agenda.
Themes
At breakfast, Mr. Yamada introduces Dr. Ibaraki to the other men in their tent, who had also previously worked with Mr. Yamada at a rubber production company. Mr. Yamada recalls the harm that the Dutch embargo on Japanese business did to their company. Dr. Ibaraki looks around the dining room for Harada but instead sees Johnny Chang, a young businessman of both Chinese and Japanese descent whom Dr. Ibaraki knows from his time living in Broome before his arrest. Johnny exclaims the injustices of the camp hierarchy, calling out Mayor Mori for taking special treatment. Yamada tells Dr. Ibaraki, who doesn’t let on that he knows Johnny, that Johnny has been a troublemaker in the camp. Many men in the dining room begin to yell racist remarks at Johnny.
The discussion of the Japanese embargo on Japanese businesses indicates the difficulty that the war has posed for Japanese businesses. Later on, when Ibaraki runs into Johnny, Johnny’s willingness to call out the injustices within the Camp shows his strong sense of right and wrong. The other men’s antagonism towards Johnny shows the racism that existed within the Japanese community towards mixed-race members of the community and foreshadows the race-based conflict within the camp.
Themes
Yamada takes Dr. Ibaraki to Harada’s tent. Dr. Ibaraki comments on how thin Harada has become. The guards call the men for a head count. Major Locke, the head of the camp, announces that the guards will begin to give the internee’s tents surprise inspections. During Major Locke’s speech, Harada collapses. Dr. Ibaraki advises the guards to take him to the hospital and accompanies them. Dr. Ashton, the physician at the headquarters, examines Harada and diagnoses him with tuberculosis.
The fact that Ibaraki’s only pre-existing friend in the camp, Harada, is ill demonstrates the fragility of the wellbeing of Ibaraki and his loved ones. Furthermore, the guards’ private inspections of the internees’ tents exemplifies the lack of control that the internees have over their space.
Themes
Dr. Ashton invites Dr. Ibaraki to work at the infirmary. Mr. Yamada tells Dr. Ibaraki that many of the inmates who have jobs at the camp periodically sabotage their jobs in protest of being underpaid. Dr. Ibaraki shows up for his first shift at the infirmary, and Shiobara shows him around the hospital. Dr. Ibaraki completes his first shift and reflects that it reminds him of his hospital internship back in Tokyo eight years ago.
The inmates who protest their jobs show an example of resistance in the face of injustice—a mindset that Ibaraki will struggle to embrace himself throughout the novel.
Themes
