Later on the last chapter of Hiroshima, Hersey told reader that Father Kleinsorge decided to change his nationality into Japanese and henceforth bear as
Father Makoto Takakura until he died on November 19, 1977.
4.2.3.4 Miss Toshiko Sasaki Sister Dominique Sasaki
To clear things up, she was not related to Dr. Sasaki. Miss Sasaki was a twenty years old clerk in East Asia Tin Works when the bomb fell. From Hersey’s
Hiroshima, the personality of Miss Sasaki is not as obvious as other characters’. It turned out that Miss Sasaki was a passive and confuse woman.
Many parts about Miss Sasaki in Hersey’s Hiroshima show that she was a passive person. She kept waiting to be helped without so much action from herself,
although she had reason to be because of the badly wounded left leg she had. But, from Hersey’s Hiroshima, reader may not find Miss Sasaki physically struggling to
survive. Instead, reader may find how she felt the extreme pain in her leg. She became a cripple after her leg healed.
Miss Sasaki lost her parents and brother because of the bomb. With her suffering on her leg, she had been growing more and more depressed and morbid.
She seemed little interested in living. When Father Kleinsorge visited her in the hospital, Miss Sasaki asked, “If your God is so good and kind, how can he let people
suffer like this?” Then Father Kleinsorge went on to explain all the reasons for everything. Whether or not Father Kleinsorge’s answers to Miss Sasaki’s question
about life were final and absolute truths, she seemed quickly to draw physical strength from them. From this, readers may conclude that Miss Sasaki was on a faith
crisis and confusion. […] The confident logic of his instruction did little to convince her,
for she could not accept the idea that a God who had snatched away her parents and put her through such hideous trials was loving and
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merciful. She was, however, warmed and healed by the priest’s faithfulness to her, for it obvious that he, too, was weak and in pain,
yet he walked great distances to see her.
Hersey, 1989: 119 In 1954, Miss Sasaki decided that she would never marry and thought to
become a nun. Three years later, she became Sister Dominique Sasaki. As a nun, Sister Sasaki did great on her services. She was active internationally in giving her
services.
4.2.3.5 Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura
