the reason of those results. Keraf 2004: 163 states that an author of narrative story must consider causality in a story so reader can answer the question of ‘why’.
4.1.3 Character
There are six main characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima. Approximately, a hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. These
six were among the survivors, later the Japanese called them as ‘hibakusha’, literally, ‘explosion-affected persons’. They tended to shy away from the term ‘survivors’,
because in its focus on being alive it might suggest some slight to the sacred dead Hersey, 1989: 92.
The six characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima are real people, not fiction characters. In some parts in the book, these six runs past another but there is not any
parts where the six of them are in one act. The six main characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima and all of them have equal
parts in the story. No one is more stands out or more important. The characterization below is based on their physical description, family background, and their
occupations. The analysis that is based on personality and dialogue is done later on some next points to prove more coherent purpose.
4.1.3.1 Dr. Masakazu Fujii
Dr. Fujii was fifty years old. There is no further description about his outer look in John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Hersey characterizes this character by showing his
personality more. He explains Dr. Fujii’s way of thinking and behavior. Dr. Fujii was a specialist doctor in medical and venereal when the bomb is
dropped. Later in 1948, he did not go with any specialties. Besides medical and venereal cases, he performed operations on keloids, did appendectomies, and treated
wounds. He had a wife and five children.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
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
