TIMELINE OF FACTS

1.Dr.Sadao Hoki’s house was built on a spot at the Japanese coast.

2.Sadao’s education was the main concern of his father.
3.He had been sent to America at the age of 22 to learn (of) surgery and medicine.
4.He had met Hana in America.  His father would not have received her unless she had been pure
in her race.
5.Their marriage had been arranged inthe old Japanese way.  Now they had two children.
6.Both of them saw a man crawling on his hands and knees.
7.The6y saw stains of blood on the sand.  The man was wounded.  He was a white man with a
rough yellow beard.
8.Dr.Sadao found that a gun wound had been reopened.
9.Dr.Sadao packed the wound with the sea moss.  The man cried in
 pain but remained unconscious.
10.They were in a fix.  If they gave shelter to a white American in their
 house, they could be arrested,.  If he was turned away, he would
 certainly die.
11.The man was an American sailor and a prisoner of war.
12.He was their enemy as all Americans were their enemies.
13.Dr.Sadao and Hana decided to carry the man into the house.
14.The man would die if he was not operated on.
15. Even the servants didn’t cooperate Dr.Sadao and Hana.  They didn’t 
want an enemy soldier saved.
16.Hana cleaned his breast and face with hot steaming water.
17.She helped her husband to turn the man and he began to wash the man’s back carefully.
18.With the cleanest and most precise of incisions, the bullet was taken out from the body.
19.The young man woke.He was very weak and terrified.
20.Hana asked him not to be afraid.
21.They didn’t want to save an enemy but human considerations
 made them save his life.
22.The man looked barely seventeen.  He asked what they were going
 to do with him.
23.Being a doctor, Sadao was trained not to let a man die.
24.However, saving an enemy was nothing less than an act of treachery.
25.Sadao examined the wound carefully every morning.  At last, the last stitches had been pulled
out.
26.The old general thought it best to have the American quietly killed.
27. He could send two of his men to kill him that night.
28.Sadao agreed that perhaps it was the best thing to do so.
29.Sadao put his boat on the sore that night with food and extra clothing.
30.He asked Tom to row to a little island to freedom.
31.Sadao informed the General that the American had escaped.
32.There was no signal from the island.  The prisoner had gone off safe.
 JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE

Justification of Title “The Enemy” is an apt title for the story that has Second World War as the
background that eventually culminates in dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
by America. Under these circumstances an American P.O.W. sailor, by no chance, could be
treated as a friend by the Japanese. The servants in Dr. Sadao’s house vehemently protest against
his presence and treat him as their sworn enemy; so much so that they sever their long standing
relationship with the Sadao over to the police. For the masses that constitute majority of the
population all the world over, all individuals belonging to the country, their nation is at war with,
are their enemies. The Sadao couple too considers Tom to be their enemy; but being educated,
they have a broader and more generous view of life, and in spite of reservations, mental conflicts
and various other odds they are confronted with, they take a humanistic view. The doctor’s
professional ethics also urge him to treat the American sailor as a patient. Neither Dr. Sadao, nor
Hana, at any stage consider him to be their friend in spite of the fact that they have spent a
number of years in the States. Hence “The Enemy” is a befitting title for the story.
The simple brilliance of Buck’s story is made manifest by the time it ends: the “enemy” could be
either the Japanese or it could be the Americans; both sides claim to be in the right and to have
entered World War II for noble reasons, but both sides are led astray by their ideology,
nationalism, and desire for power. On the individual level, Buck stresses that Sadao and Tom are
connected, despite all of their differences, by their humanity—humanity that supersedes all other
impulses. This does not mean these characters are perfect or vastly superior—Tom holds racist
and simpleminded views of Japanese people and Sadao fixates on the “repulsiveness” of white
people—but both of them realize that life is more important than ideology.

INTRODUCTION
The story highlights how a Japanese doctor saves the life of an American prisoner of war and
rises above narrow national prejudices. He risks his honour, career, position and life by
sheltering a war prisoner of the enemy camp and saving his life. The author has beautifully
portrayed the conflict in the doctor’s mind as a private individual and as a citizen with a sense of
national loyalty.

SETTING
The story takes place on a coastal town of Japan in the year 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl
Harbour. A war was going on between America and Japan. Japanese were hostile to the
Americans and ready to kill any American found in their soil.
 THEME
‘The Enemy’ gives the message that humanism transcends all man made prejudices and barriers.
Dr. Sadao upholds the ethics of medical profession in treating an enemy. The story is a great
lesson of peace, love, sympathy, fellow feeling and humanism.

ENDING
Once Tom is gone, the dilemma is resolved. Sadao has to go back to his normal life, and his
normal life is in the traditional Japanese society. He must go back to his traditional, Japanese
mode of thinking and to the values that it holds. The patriotism and the prejudice against white
people are all part of that side. There is no place there for human compassion which makes him
save his enemy. In order for Sadao to live at peace with himself and his country, his family, his
career, and his commander, he has to suppress what he has done and deny that he did it because
he wanted to save the man's life. Now, when he's in his Japanese side, he can't admit to himself
that he saved his enemy's life, so he tells himself it's strange that he couldn't kill him—because
killing him is what he should have done according to Japanese tradition.” This is an apt
description of Sadao’s complicated, complex feelings about what he’s done over the last few
weeks.

MESSAGE
‘The Enemy’ gives the message that humanism transcends all man-made prejudices and barriers.
Here, Dr. Sadao upholds the ethics of medical profession in treating an enemy. The story is a
great lesson of peace, love, sympathy, fellow feeling and humanism.

HIPPOCRATIC OATH AND THE DOCTOR’S CONFLICT

Buck beautifully chronicles the tension between Sadao’s ethical commitment to his profession
(as represented by the Hippocratic Oath) and his loathing for the man. The Oath states that “I
will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow
human beings”; against his will, Sadao is reminded of that (even though the narrator does not
specifically reference the oath). He sees that the man is white but still probes the wound to
ascertain what is going on inside him. His “trained hands seemed of their own will to be doing
what they could to stop the fearful bleeding.” Even as he and Hana wonder if they should toss
him back in the sea rather than risk the danger of having him in their home, he muses that since
the man is wounded, he cannot do so; this is the crucial distinction: the man needs a doctor’s aid.
Once brought into the home, Sadao sees the extent of his injuries even more; when Hana asks,
“What if he should live?”, Sadao replies, “What if he should die?” This would be against his
understanding of his profession’s duty: if he could try to save a life, he must do so.
 CHARACTER SKETCH: HANA
Hana is potentially a stand-in for the reader. Even more than Sadao, she vacillates between fear
and compassion, lack of surety and conviction. She is perturbed by the white man’s body and
does not want to wash him, but she thinks about how his skin, “though rough with exposure, was
of a fine texture and must have been very blond when he was a child.” She is anxious, concerned
about the man’s blood ruining her mat, and a skillful assistant to Sadao—all at the same time.
Though she is not a physician, she seems to have the same instinctive need to offer succor and
compassion in her own way. And perhaps most importantly of all, she allows herself a flicker of
doubt regarding her own country’s cruel treatment of prisoners of war. There are rumors, she
knows, but “sometimes she remembered such men as General Takima, who at home beat his
wife cruelly, though no one mentioned it now that he had fought so victorious a battle in
Manchuria. If a man like that could be so cruel to a woman in his power, would he not be cruel
to one like this for instance?”

CHARACTER SKETCH: SADAO (ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

Sadao seems to be a doctor before he is a Japanese citizen, a husband, an employee, or someone
at war. He knows the Hippocratic oath that says he has a duty to save a life, to put health before
harm, and to see beyond borders, skin color, and the exigencies of politics, conflict, and war. He
acts instinctively and intuitively, caring only about the viscera, the bullet, and the body—he isn't
deterred by the fact that the boy he is working on is "supposed" to be his enemy. He is a
consummate professional, his desire to save lives and heal permeating every fiber of his being.

Once Sadao decides to operate, Buck implies just how entrenched the doctor’s training is and
how little it matters that the man is ostensibly his “enemy.” When Hana rues that the mat is
ruined, Sadao responds “as though he did not care.” He “did not seem to hear her,” but she was
“used to his absorption when he was at work.” When he probes for the bullet, he does so “with
cool interest.” When he considers that the man’s wounds are grave and he might die, he
considers it a personal challenge to help him live. Striking the bullet with his instrument, Sadao
“felt only the purest pleasure” and even began murmuring to the patient as he oft did, calling
him, ironically, “My friend.” His movements are efficient and efficacious, and the reader is
supposed to marvel at his skill.

THREE KINDS OF IRONY

Dramatic Irony: Factors Limiting Japan
In the opening flashback, the story’s protagonist recalls words spoken by his father as he stared
out to the horizon, beyond which lay all the islands of the South Seas. He refers to these islands
as the “stepping-stones to the future of Japan” before rhetorically contemplating, “Who can limit
our future?” Ironically, of course, history would prove that it was none other than Japan’s
wartime enemy—the United States—that could, did, and has limited Japan’s future.

Verbal Irony: Killing as Kindness

When Sadao says the "kindest thing would be to put him back in the sea," there is a degree of
irony there, whether he intends it or not. It is hard to see how it would be "kind" to let the man
drown or die of his nasty wounds; in contrast, the truly kind thing is Sadao taking the man into
his home to save his life.

Situational Irony: An American in a Japanese Room

There is irony in the fact that the room where the American—the foreigner, the enemy—is taken
for his operation and to recover is Sadao's father's room, a room where "everything here had
been Japanese to please the old man, who would never in his own home sit on a chair or sleep in
a foreign bed."

WORD MEANINGS

 Creeping up – (here) slowly  Wreathing – encircling

moving up

 Haori – a loose outer garment  Kimono – wide sleeved Japanese

resembling a coat and extending dress
to the knees worn over a kimono

 Voluble – talkative  Heedlessly – (here)

carelessly; recklessly

 Breaker – heavy wave  Staggered – walked unsteadily

 Surf – foam of sea  Tended – nursed

 Solemn – earnest; serious  Beachcombers – a person without a

regular job, who lives by selling
whatever is found on the beaches
 Muttered – mumbled; murmured  Stanch – check or stop the flow of
blood

 Packed – (here) filled  Strewed – scattered

 Stupor – unconsciousness  Repulsion – disgust; aversion

 Inert – immobile, inactive, lifeless  Battered – (here) torn

 Fowl – chicken, poultry as food  Distress – anxiety, dismay, sorrow

 Pallor – paleness  Stoop – bend down

 Vitality – strength, vigor, stamina  Menace – (here) a person who is

threatening or dangerous

 Bluntly – curtly, straight  Sustained – supported, encouraged

forwardly, frankly

 Conviction – belief  Impulsively –

instinctively; involuntarily

 Ebbing – declining; (here) subsiding  Tokonama alcove – a niche in

Japanese home, generally for
displaying flower arrangement or a
piece of art
 Concise – brief  Peered into – looked closely into

 Superficial – on the surface; not  Choked – suffocated, felt gagged

deep

 Retching – making motion  Distress – anxiety, sadness, grief

of vomiting

 Moaned – groaned; a low sound of  Ruthless – callous, hard, cruel,

pain or grief fierce, heartless

 Intricate – complex, complicated,  Contradicted – denied

not simple