Power and Conflict: Kamikaze

• "Her father embarked at sunrise with a flask of water, a samurai sword"

  • sun is symbolic of the Japan flag
  • ^ divine
  • sibilance is a sign of peace
  • culture + tradition
  • 3rd person narrator
  • detachment from society
  • water = spiritually pure
  • to go onto his grandfather's boat - the soldier realising he is his own enemy
  • reminding him of the family he will lose
  • established a relationship with her father
  • allowed her children to have a grandfather
  • lives a living death
  • beginning of a journey
• "like a huge flag waved first one way then the other in a figure of eight"

  • simile
  • patriotism
  • ^ sacrifice his life
  • celebration
  • surrender
  • fixed decision
  • imagining his death - immortality as a hero
  • eternal death
  • he will have to live with his this decision
  • infinity symbol
  • a physical representation of flying to his suicide, then returning back home
• "the loose silver of whitebait and once a tuna, the dark prince muscular and dangerous"

  • biblical allusion to Jesus and Judas
  • betrayal of his country
  • metaphorical
  • could be the Japanese Royal Family allowing many soldiers to die
  • a strong, positive decision
  • her father could be classified as this if he throws his life away
• "only we children chattered and laughed / til gradually we had learned / to be silent"

  • loved and grateful to see their father
  • she reflects on her past
  • unnatural to disown her father
  • social expectations
  • juxtaposed
  • turning point (volta)
  • forced upon them
  • they've been taught
• "and sometimes, she said, he must've wondered which had be the better way to die"

  • the daughter never spoke to her father about his decision despite living with him for many years
  • should've done what was expected
  • third person
  • the memory is too painful for him
  • he died emotionally withing the family
  • the death only lasted when his wife was alive
  • modal verb