[English] - [Text Response Essay] - [After Darkness]

[Abdibasit]

Here is a T.R essay I'm working on Please read through and give me some advice

‘Ibaraki is a flawed but ultimately admirable person.’ Discuss.

 “After Darkness” as the “darkness” hints at the doctor’s involvement in Unit 731, and also the breakdown of his relationship with his wife. Christine Piper’s “After Darkness” also hints at the wider issue of how we atone for the sins of the past, on an individual and also a societal level. From the outset, Piper depicts Ibaraki as a flawed individual filled with regret and shame because of his past mistakes that he made in Japan before he fled to Broome, Australia. However, despite his temporary retreat and avoidance of his past, Ibaraki still had to make peace with the inevitable choice that he must face his problems head-on in order to deal with them. Piper also implies that a strong sense of friendship may be created from common struggles and hardships. Ibaraki’s ability to make friends with other people despite their racial differences is seen by the modern audience as commendable and worthy of praise especially at a time where racism was a common practice. Nevertheless, Piper presents Ibaraki as a truly human person in his flawed characteristics. While he has great growth in the novel, ultimately the idea of him being framed wholly admirable is questionable.

 Piper shows that flaws are a part of human nature, however, set against the backdrop of crimes against humanity she casts “mild-mannered” Ibaraki as a flawed hero who had “clung to the ideal of discretion” at the expense of his own life and the dignity of the victims he witnessed. As the narrative unfolds he resolves to rectify his flawed decisions and educate his own community based on the idea that he thought that “there is something the Japanese people should know.” However, it is apparent in the novel that the problems that Ibaraki faced could arguably have been avoided had he not chose to remain silent in which the regret he experiences augments the fact that “In keeping [his] silence, [he] hadn’t exercised the very quality that makes [him] human.” The author clearly outlines the protagonist as flawed due to his impulsive behaviour in which he chooses to wait until the damage has been done primarily due to his myopic decision-making skills. This is exemplified when Sister Bernice attempts to peer into Ibaraki’s past life and her curiosity in which she questions his decision not return home in the break of war with Japan. Piper shows how Ibaraki continuously chooses to push others aside like Sister Bernice, asserting that “it’s hard for you to understand,” and yet, he feels despondent, claiming his “careless behaviour had driven Sister Bernice away.” Furthermore, Ibaraki’s expectation that everything will be back to normal shows his level of naivety by solely focusing on himself. Particularly upon his return to Japan from Australia, and reuniting with his wife, assuming that she would “return to live with [him]” despite abandoning her when she lost the child, the protagonist finally realises that “[his] own grief” prevented him “to consider how she must [have] felt” which further strengthens Piper’s viewpoint of the protagonist as an individual with a broken personality as a result of his flawed nature. Through portraying Ibaraki strictly as the cause for his own peril throughout the novel, Piper suggests that these traits cannot possibly deem him to be admirable in any way.