Hiroshima Fear Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

He moved nervously and fast, but with a restraint which suggested that he was a cautious, thoughtful man. He showed, indeed, just those qualities in the uneasy days before the bomb fell. (1.3)

Hersey's description of Mr. Tanimoto paints a picture of a nervous, careful person overwhelmed by the "uneasy days" that had preceded that one.

Quote #5

Mr. Tanimoto cooked his own breakfast. He felt awfully tired. The effort of moving the piano the day before, a sleepless night, weeks of worry and unbalanced diet, the cares of his parish—all combined to make him feel hardly adequate to the new day's work. There was another thing, too: Mr. Tanimoto had studied theology at Emory College, in Atlanta, Georgia; he had graduated in 1940; he spoke excellent English; he dressed in American clothes; he had corresponded with many American friends right up to the time the war began; and among a people obsessed with a fear of being spied upon—perhaps almost obsessed himself—he found himself growing increasingly uneasy. (1.4)

With the anxious atmosphere of that time came a fair bit of paranoia, it seems. Not that we can blame anyone for being paranoid. Aside from fearing imminent attack, the people of Hiroshima were apparently super-tweaky about the prospect of being spied upon. Hersey makes a few references to this vein of paranoia.

Quote #6

Dr. Fujii hardly had time to think that he was dying before he realized that he was alive, squeezed tightly by two long timbers in a V across his chest, like a morsel suspended between two huge chopsticks—held upright so that he could not move, with his head miraculously above water and his torso and legs in it. (1.18)

After the blast, Dr. Fujii was clearly so confused and scrambled up by events that he thought he was dying—but that fear had barely gotten a foothold before he realized his immediate problem was being trapped—alive, but trapped.