Censored Freedom

     Barefoot Gen is a story written by Keiji Nakazawa depicting the horrors of the Hiroshima bombings to a degree greater than what is commonly told to the United States public via other means (High School Ed, books, movies, etc). Although we, the people of the United States, have great access to a variety of information via the internet, the amount of released items pertaining to the bombings is limited.

     The graphic visuals presented in the book Barefoot Gen give more information about what happened on the ground when the event took place. Our knowledge of the full effect of the bomb is limited through the limitation of information that is immediately accessible. What we most know is the American view. A quick search for information on Hiroshima and Nagasaki leads to images of planes dropping the bombs - with no view of the destruction – or images of a place in sanitized ruin.

     While we are free to ponder on the happenings of that day, we are presented with acceptable ideas of a bird's eye view while inhibited from thinking of the ground perspective; we are diverted from imagining the horrors that occurred as they occurred. However, the images of this book are more descriptive than the public views of the bombing above the ground, away from, and after the destruction.

     We don't need pictures of the happening to know it ended terribly for many people within the blast radius. However, it is still a fragmented piece of history that shouldn't be kept from the public's knowledge. 'Collateral Murder' is an example of the hidden history kept from the public, only to be uncovered through unofficial means. With such censoring of important material, the use of doublethink to persuade the public into censorship becomes more apparent.