Themes In When The Emperor Was Divine

When the Emperor was Divine The internment of thousands of Japanese families and people in general was a symbol of not only the oppression of a mass of people but also of the growing trend throughout the ages of the same type of war-time oppression. Throughout history, people have been being taken forcibly from their homes and placed in precarious and quite uncomfortable situations just for the sake of people’s “safety”. Although, it was typically only in times of war, it still had an impact on people even after their return from internment camps. Julie Otsuka shows this effect of oppression on a mass of people in her novel, When the Emperor was Divine. The novel is based in World War Two in Berkeley, California. This is prominent because the family of main characters is a Japanese family in America at the time of World War Two. This becomes a main issue because at that time approximately 120,000 Japanese people in the United States were taken into internment camps and were suspected to be spies. War-time oppression becomes a big theme throughout the novel in a sense that the family is put through this situation with their father and …show more content…
This concept is shown throughout Julie Otsuka’s novel When the Emperor was Divine. Otsuka uses the story of a family who is forced to live in an internment camp in the midst of World War Two and the oppression of the Japanese Americans due to the tension caused by Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. This wasn’t just an issue during these times. Throughout history, people have been forced into camps and separated from society just for the sake of someone else’s “safety”. Although, only typically used in times of war and tension, this type of oppression can be damaging to families especially and even simply individuals. It can be difficult to overcome the weight of the way someone treats you just because of the way you were