Previous
Stains
In a novel deeply concerned with what it means to be free, animals represent the various forms of incarceration. The first animal we see is White Dog, a completely domesticated animal that relies completely on the family for sustenance. White Dog trusts the woman, his provider, so much that he offers no resistance when she kills him out of mercy. Here, White Dog represents many of the Japanese-Americans themselves, who trust the U.S. government so much that they consent to the injustice of being sent to the internment camps.
Unlike White Dog, the family’s caged bird does escape its imprisonment. It is the family’s domesticated pet, but the woman decides to releases the bird from its cage instead of killing it, because she knows it can survive in the wild. When she first lets it out, however, the bird refuses to be free, tapping on the windows to be let back in. Here, we see the psychological power of incarceration, and the feeling of safety and security that can come with imprisonment. The bird has internalized its status as a prisoner and does not want to give it up—the cage is comforting and familiar to it.
Finally, the wild mustangs that the children see on the desert plain represent complete liberty. Running across the plain, the wild animals revel in their freedom. Looking out the window, the boy admires and longs for that freedom as his family hurdles toward the prison camp. For the boy, the horses represent that ideal state of freedom, which he will long for throughout the novel but never attain.
Wild and Domesticated Animals Quotes in When the Emperor was Divine
The When the Emperor was Divine quotes below all refer to the symbol of Wild and Domesticated Animals. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
White Dog rolled over and looked up at her with his good eye. “Play dead,” she said. White Dog turned his head to the side and closed his eyes. His paws went limp. The woman picked up the large shovel that was leaning against the trunk of the tree. She lifted it high in the air with both hands and brought the blade down swiftly over his head…She picked up White dog and dropped him into the hole…She pulled off her gloves and looked at them. They were no longer white. She dropped them into the hole and picked up the shovel again. She filled the hole.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2
Quotes
All summer long they had lived in the old horse stalls in the stables behind the racetrack. In the morning they had washed their faces in the long tin troughs and at night they had slept on mattresses stuffed with straw…On their first night there her brother had plucked the stiff horse hairs out of the freshly white-washed walls and run his fingers along the toothmarks on top of the double Dutch door where the wood was soft and worn.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
She pulled back the shade…and saw a herd of wild mustangs galloping across the desert…The dark bodies of the horses were drifting and turning in the moonlight and wherever they went they left behind great billowing clouds of dust as proof their passage. The girl lifted the shade and pulled her brother to the window and pressed his face gently to the glass and when he saw the mustangs…he let out a low moan that sounded like a cry of pain but was not. He watched the horses as they galloped toward the mountains and he said, very softly, “They are going away.” Then a soldier with a flashlight and a broom came walking down the aisle. The girl let the shade fall back against the glass and told the boy to return to his seat.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Emperor was Divine LitChart as a printable PDF.
Wild and Domesticated Animals Symbol Timeline in When the Emperor was Divine
The timeline below shows where the symbol Wild and Domesticated Animals appears in When the Emperor was Divine. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Evacuation Order No. 19
...woman knows she can bring clothes and bedding but not much else. She cannot bring pets. She has given their cat to the neighbors. She caught the chicken, which had been...
(full context)
...on the front porch. She claps her hands a few times and an old white dog comes limping out of the trees. “Eat up, White Dog,” she says. The woman thinks...
(full context)
...on her gloves and with the twine she bought from the store, she ties the dog to the big tree in the backyard. She tells the dog to play dead and...
(full context)
...The boy opens the door to the backyard and calls White Dog’s name, but the dog doesn’t appear. The boy says that the dog is getting deafer all the time, and...
(full context)
After the children go to sleep, the woman takes their pet macaw from the birdcage. The bird says, “Get over here,” and the woman thinks its voice...
(full context)
...takes a bottle of plum wine, sits down on the floor, and drinks. Without the bird in the cage, the house feels empty to her. After a few sips, she begins...
(full context)
Chapter 2: Train
...As she looks out the window, the boy asks if she thinks they’ll see any horses. The girl remembers reading a National Geographic article about how Nevada has the most wild...
(full context)
After the family left their house, the army had moved them to the horse stables behind the city racetrack. Families upon families of Japanese Americans crowded into the racetrack,...
(full context)
...thrown a brick through the window. Startled and confused, the girl asks her mother where White Dog is. The woman says he’s at home. The girl then pulls up the shade to...
(full context)
Chapter 3: When The Emperor Was Divine
...in long braids, hobbled on broken feet, and that they were so poor they ate dogs. One day before they left for the camps, a white man had stopped the boy...
(full context)
...likes to think of his dad as an outlaw, wearing boots and riding a big horse. Then the boy feels ashamed that the FBI agents led his father away in his...
(full context)
...being disturbed, the girl puckers her lips and says the army rounds up the wild horses, like the ones the boy saw on the train, and shoots them. Over the last...
(full context)
