4.1.3.2 Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
When the bomb is dropped, Dr. Sasaki was twenty-five years old and lived with his mother. He had a very small figure and he wore glasses to help his errors of
vision. Again, Hersey did not elaborate the character’s physical image into details. Nevertheless, Hersey still put down tiny detail that helps reader to know the
character more. For example, Hersey states that Dr. Sasaki mastered German well and he was a heavy smoker.
He completed his training at the Japanese Eastern Medical University, in Tsinftao, China. Then, he backed to Japan and became the Red Cross Hospital junior
surgeon. Ten years later, he got his actual doctoral degree from University of Hiroshima. He got married on March 1946. Eventually, he owned a private clinic in
Mukaihara, where his mother was lived. His late father was a doctor. His older brother was killed in the war. His wife is died of breast cancer in 1972. He has two
sons, Yoshihisa and Ryuji, by now both are doctors.
4.1.3.3 Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge Father Makoto Takakura
Father Kleinsorge was a German. He was thirty-eight years old when the incident is happened. He had thin face, prominent Adam’s apple, a hollow chest,
dangling hands, big feet, and leaned forward a little when he walked. Hersey describes Father Kleinsorge’s feature in detail because in the story, Father
Kleinsorge had been uneasy for being a foreigner in Japan. He was a Jesuit priest of the Society of Jesus. He registered himself as a
Japanese citizen under the name Father Makoto Takakura. There is no family history background of Father Kleinsorge in Hersey’s Hiroshima.
4.1.3.4 Miss Toshiko Sasaki Sister Dominique Sasaki
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Miss Sasaki was about twenty years old when the bomb was dropped. She is not related to Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, one of the six main characters in Hersey’s
Hiroshima. Miss Sasaki was a medium-sized female. Her left leg was crushed by some heavy objects when the bomb fell and made her a cripple ever since. She had a
low-spirited life because of the agony in her leg and talked to Father Kleinsorge for moral support. Then, she prepared herself for conversion to Catholicism and by
September 1946 she was baptized. Miss Sasaki was a clerk in East Asia Tin Works and she was in charge of the
personal records in the factory. In 1957, she became a nun under the name Sister Dominique Sasaki. In the age of thirty-three years old, she became the first Japanese
director that was in charge in the Garden of St. Joseph until twenty years ahead. Miss Sasaki had younger siblings, two brothers and a sister. One of her brother was killed
by the atomic bomb, along with her parents.
4.1.3.5 Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura
There is no Mrs. Nakamura’s physical description in Hersey’s Hiroshima. Hersey only tells one habit of Mrs. Nakamura, that is she always does as she was
told. No more personal description of Mrs. Nakamura. In describing Mrs. Nakamura, the narrator focuses on her actions and background.
She is a tailor’s widow. Her husband, Isawa, died in war. They had three children, Toshio who was ten years old when the bomb fell, Yaeko who was eight
years old, and Myeko who was five years old. Mrs. Nakamura was a housewife but since the death of her husband, she supported the family by sewing. After the
bombing, she lived check after check. Once, she did cleaning and laudry and washed dishes. Then, she became a bread deliverer. Also, she owned a small street shop for
children afterwards. After that, she had a job of collecting money for deliveries of the
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Hiroshima paper, the Chugoku Shimbun. Finally, the last job she had until she was retired, she helped wrapping the product of Paragen in its packages in Suyama
Chemical for thirteen years.
4.1.3.6 The Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto
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