Hope/Hopeless

To be honest I am not quite sure what to blog about for this blog post, so I decided to write about my final reactions to When the Emperor was Divine. Well first, in our class discussion we discussed briefly about if the book has a hopeful ending or a hopeless ending. After reading through the end of the book a few times, I think that for each character the ending is different. If you take the mother first, when she left the camp she was clearly not in the right state of mind, but once she left she started to turn her life around, for example with getting a job of her own. However, I think the camps affected the mother in many different ways, she was happy to be out, she got a job, but she still lives with the pain and suffering that she endured during that time. The same pain and suffering followed her out of the camps, but I think she hid it. I do not think she can let go of what happened to her and it will begin to take over her life, and I feel it is what kills her in the end. Now for the father, he just gives up, he does not fight for what he knows is right, he just confesses saying he did. There is no hope for the father, by him confessing he is saying, “I am done, and I give up.” It is almost as he knew that he would never win, so that is why he gave in. The only hope I see is for the children, the daughter might have a tougher time because of her age and she understands what was going on, but I think she will be able to work through the pain and suffering she endured during the camps, and she will grow stronger through her experiences. The son as well as because like the professor stated in class he entered the camps with a sense of innocence and came out with somewhat of that sense of innocence. He too will grow stronger from this experience and will live to prove everyone wrong, like his sister they will fight to prove they are “not the bad guys” they are good people. So as for hope, I have hope for the children but the not the parents, the children will live to tell their stories!