In the short story Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya is a heart wrenching story that demonstrates how war affects not only a nations soldiers but also everything else in the nation. Pieces of text that accommodate to this are how the zoo staff represent innocents, the elephants are the loss and the governments are the antagonists. Now that I have demonstrated my point of view I shall precede to prove that war affects everyone and not just soldiers.
In faithful elephants the zookeepers represent innocents. Tsuchiya represents them well by showing that they have cares and how they are humane like any of us. When the zookeepers are supposed to kill Tonky and Wanly (two of the elephants in the story) they try to postpone the killings of the elephants as they love the elephants and don't wish to kill them. As they are forced too though they regret ever doing so and make a memorial for them. This shows that they represent the innocent people in war as they loss things that they love and they are just average people like us.
Another way Tsuchiya shows how everything is affected in war is how the elephants are killed brutally. The elephants represent the people who are killed and the losses in war.The elephants show this as they are killed by people they trusted with all their hearts. They didn't suspect to be betrayed by the people who trained and cared for them. Even when they were dying they tried to please their trainers by performing tricks. This represents people who die and the losses of war as they were killed by there own country in order to keep it safe.
Finally Tsuchiya shows how governments think that they are something to protect society but only makes the situation more unbearable. He does this by writing about how they force the zoo keepers to kill all the animals in the zoo because they're afraid of bombs falling and destroying the cages in the zoo allowing them to escape and harm others. For this they break the hearts of the zookeepers and kill docile animals.
Tsuchiya wrote this for a few reasons in my opinion. One so that we can finally see how war really affects everyone and not just soldiers and so that we know why we should oppose war. There is a phrase that has been said again and again "it takes one man to scale a mountain, but many to conquer it". Tsuchiya scaled this mountain now it's up to you to help him conquer it. Only we can stop wars but at the same time only we can start them so choose your path wisely.
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