When The Emperor Was Divine

“When The Emperor Was Divine” is a great novel. I think it’s well written and easy to stay connected with. I think Julie Otsuka has written this novel very straight forward. She just comes to the main point or I would say just what exactly the reader needs to know.  I like to read stories that just tell you what you really need to know, not the things that are just extra added to them. This novel seems like it’s going to be one of favorite novels of mine. I have heard about Pearl Harbor, the war, and little bit about American Japanese, but I never heard anything about the Interned Camps and what happened in them. I think this novel and class discussions are going to help me a lot learn about them and I am really looking forward to it. The novel starts with a story of a mother, who is living with her children in America. This family’s living style’s a lot like American families. The children like to play baseball and piano, which is very American and also they only speak English. The mother is trying very hard to give her children the best life she could. I think she is trying to make her kids to be like American and live like American, so that no one would harass them for not living like American, while being in America. Her husband is away from her at Fort Sam Houston, because government thought he could be a traitor or spy, so they arrested him. “She had not seen her husband since his arrest last December”(10). She is only there to take care of the kids and the house. She plays different roles in the house, including the role of husband as her children’s daddy. I think she is very strong to take care of her family as best as she could do. She’s very religious too. When she was putting the pictures in the box, “she made sure to put Jesus on top”. Believing in Jesus also represents of her living as an American. The whole family was going, but they didn’t know where they were going. “She did not know where they were going or how long they would be gone or who would be living in their house while they were gone” (8-9). I think she was happy and hopeful that she was going out, but she didn’t know the consequences that what’s about to happen with her family. I think she killed the dog before she left, because she loved him. I mean he was old and she probably thought he might die after she leaves, so why shouldn’t I kill him now that way he won’t have to suffer. By setting the bird free, I think is a significance of freedom. I think she wanted everyone in the house to be free before she leaves. I think she good mother. She’s trying her best to save her children from the taunts by making them live like Americans. I am really looking forward to find out about what’s going to happen with them and how the mother will take good care of her children and her husband.