General Takima Character Analysis

General Takima is a famed Japanese war hero. While observing Tom’s peculiar wounds—which indicate that he’s endured some type of torture at the hands of the Japanese—Hana reflects on how General Takima “beat his wife cruelly” in the privacy of their own home, but how “no one mentioned it now that he had fought so victorious a battle in Manchuria.” Hana wonders, “If a man like that could be so cruel to a woman in his power, would he not be cruel to one like this for instance?” Although Hana desperately wants to believe that Tom hasn’t been tortured, she knows that he has. This makes her doubt the media’s claims “that wherever the Japanese armies went the people received them gladly, with cries of joy at their liberation.” Thinking of General Takima’s disparate public and private personas forces Hana to consider that the Japanese authorities might not be wholly good, perfect, and heroic as nationalist sentiments may lead her to believe. This moment of doubt is fairly fleeting for Hana, though the relative lengthiness of her reflection in relation to the rest of the narrative suggests that the moment is a significant one for her. General Takima’s abuse of his wife—which seems widely known, given that “no one mentioned it now”—also emphasizes the way that strict gender roles can be abused, and suggests that Hana and Dr. Sadao Hoki’s marriage, though traditional, is a positive one.