Comparative Essay Between Japanese Literatures. Essay

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Comparison between Blind Chinese Soldiers and The Empty Cans
Literary techniques help writers layer meanings into their stories as well as elicit various emotions among readers. They help the writers adorn their works and present it in a way that is more appealing to the audience. Various literary devices are employed by different authors. They include characterization, symbolism, motif, among others (Allen, Carrier and Woods 835). The way in which the author narrates the story, as well as the voice and tone used, are also critical in the final product. Blind Chinese Soldiers was written in 1946 by Hirabayashi Taiko. It was among the first Japanese post-war works and is majorly critical of the military (Taiko 45). The Empty Can was written by Hayashi Kyoko in 1978. It recounts the memory of the explosion of the second atomic bomb in Nagasaki. This paper seeks to compare these two short stories by analyzing the various literary devices employed by the authors as well as the historical meanings that the authors sought to relay.
Through the use of various literary devices, Taiko successfully creates a picture of the absurdities and horror associated with war in the reader’s mind. Symbolism features predominantly throughout the story. At the start, the author states that though the sky was clear, the dusty roofs and spaces among the leaves were dark. This shows that though the war was coming to an end, the scars caused still persisted. The snow in the valleys is also described to be hard as ice to show the difficulties that war brings. The five hundred blind Chinese soldiers have been used to represent the hundreds of lives destroyed by the war. The author uses first-person narration to clearly bring out the atrocities of the war. This gives the story more depth in that the reader sees it as a life lived by the author (Lippit and Selden). The tone can be described as ambivalent. Though the author and the other passengers at the train station feel sorry f...