When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka

“When the Emperor was Divine” is a novel written by Julie Otsuka. The novel is about a Japanese American family being sent to an internment camp during World War II. A major theme in this novel is the idea hope and how people use it to help them in their time of need. As the family in this story go through this experience, they hold on to memories of their lives before they were forced into the internment camps. Because the family is uncertain about their future, they hope for the best to keep their minds off of their current suffering.
In the camp, the boy imagines what his friends are thinking about him while he is away. He thinks that his friends are worried about him. When the family returns to their neighborhood, both of the children believe that they can continue on with their lives, as if nothing has changed. “We would seek out …show more content…
He remembered the good times he had with his father to distract himself of his current suffering. When his family and their father return home, he is not what they remembered or hoped for in a father. "Our Father, the father we remembered, and had dreamed of, almost nightly, all through the years of the war, was handsome and strong. He moved quickly, surely, with his head held high in the air. He likes to draw for us. He liked to sing for us. He liked to laugh. The man who came back on the train looked much older than his fifty-six years" (132). The kids were disappointed in what their father has become. They didn’t think about how prison can change him. His appearance shows the ordeal the Japanese went through during this time period. During their time in the camp, they were hoping that after they go back home, that everything will go back to normal. However, once they saw their father, they realized that things will never go back to normal. After a group of people have been through a horrific experience, their lives and the person will never be the