Memory of a Victim

The effects of the atomic bomb on Japanese citizens did not simply vanish. It took Japan years to recover the cities and some citizens mentally will never feel normal again. Consider a similar situation in America. Survivor victims involved in the 911 crash are still recovering. Although the plane crash had less devastating effects than the bombing of multiple cities, the 911 attack is still considered as a terrorist act compared bombing, which has yet to be considered a terrorist motive. Obviously, this is an unequal balance yet we are still seen as the good guys. American government tempted to disguise us as people who want to look out for Japanese well beings. America has used tax payers money to rehabilitate what we destroyed. The government even tried to convince the Japanese that we were the justly ones. With efforts of impersonation, the government brought some of the madams to get plastic surgery, yet we were the ones who created such a tragedy. In "Commemoration and Silence," Laura Hein and  Mark Selden show "residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... frantically searching for family members" (32). We did this to them.

Our class readings are progressing into the new topic of memory. Just as the New Yorkers remember the smoke filling the streets, the Japanese do too. I remember the day the United States was attacked. I had been in school, and once I got home I watched the horror before me in my living room. That is all I remember from the event, me sitting on the floor gazing up on it. I believe the only reason why I still have this image in my head and I'm still able to remember this specific day is because the effects it had on me. As you grow up you accumulate a memory of the most life changing things that have happened in your life. There is a reason that specific memory was never forgotten about. I was so young in this memory, yet I remember what happened. My point is that my small memory that was fairly irrelevant to my life as being a child is memorable. I compare the importance and the actual screen images that the Japanese survivors have. It is easy for me to remember a time with little importance, thus it is hard to forget a time with great importance. The scale of importance boils down to "things experienced either in reality or in thought" (23), which Sigmund Freud addresses with thought process in his article "Childhood Memories and Screen Memories."As the bomb survivors face paramnesia, Americans offer plastic surgery to some women. This is asking of them to forget the scars and damages that was caused. Yes they may feel better about themselves, but no person will ever be able to take away their experience of being there in the reality of the bomb and in the mentality of a victim.