43 pages • 1 hour read
Masuji IbuseBlack Rain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1965A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Shigematsu continues his diary entry from August 11. He shares a meal with the factory manager and then performs another funeral service. After the service, he discusses the need for coal with his manager and then returns to the temporary home near the factory where he is staying with his family. Shigeko and Yasuko eat the toasted rice cakes brought as a gift from Shigeko's brothers, Masao Watanabe and Yoshio Takamaru (who is Yasuko's “real father” [117]). After an emotional reunion, Watanabe recounts how he expected the family to be dead but was alerted to their current status by a neighbor. The two brothers walked most of the way to the factory, and they are delighted to see their family members still alive.
The next say, Shigematsu wakes early to write a letter for the two brothers to take back to the small village where their families live. Writing the letter is emotionally overwhelming, however, so he takes the train into Hiroshima instead to inquire about coal for the factory. He passes rotting corpses and thousands of notes from desperate people searching for relatives. He sees a man trying to break open a safe but decides the man does not “look like a thief” (124).
Chapter 14 Summary
Shigematsu continues his diary entry from August 12. More people are searching through the ruins of Hiroshima for their dead relatives. Shigematsu visits the Clothing Branch Depot again to inquire about coal, but he is told to “carry on somehow” (126). Feeling helpless, he walks through the city until he spots a familiar face: Tamotsu is from the same village as Shigematsu and is working with the special relief squads to clear the destroyed buildings. Shigematsu accompanies Tamotsu and his colleagues to the hospital. There, he learns that “a new type of bomb” (128) similar to the one dropped on Hiroshima has also been dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. In addition, the Soviet Union has now entered the war against Japan. Shigematsu feels, for the first time, that “the end of the road [has] at last been reached” (128).
At the chaotic, busy hospital, rumors spread that Japan has its own versions of this terrible new American weapon. The rumors suggest these Japanese bombs are being used at this very moment. The doctors are convinced Hiroshima was attacked by a biological weapon, so they enlist the Army to build a quarantine area for sick patients. The doctors struggle to understand why the people who treat the sick become sick themselves. Shigematsu agrees to help Tamotsu pass along a message to other members of his unit.
Chapter 15 Summary
Shigematsu continues his diary entry from August 12. While returning to the factory, he meets an old childhood friend named Teiko. She is, like many other people, searching the ruins of Hiroshima for loved ones, though she admits they are likely “so much charcoal by now” (134). Teiko and Shigematsu walk together. She talks about her search for family members and the information she has gleaned about the war effort from the guests who visit her inn. Eventually, they part ways. Shigematsu returns to the factory and tells his manager they cannot obtain coal. He makes a new plan for the next day.
On August 13, Shigematsu wakes up with a terrible pain in his feet. While Shigeko searches for medicine, Shigematsu begins to believe that he has been “poisoned by the bomb” (136) like many others with symptoms such as a diminished interest in sex. Despite the pain, he travels to Onoura to continue his search for coal. He notices that victims of the bomb have a distinct bad smell. Similarly, people who spend time with the sickest patients become sick themselves. Shigematsu is unable to acquire any coal or find anyone in the local hospitals, so he returns to Hiroshima. Making a slight revision to his diary, Shigematsu describes the government response to the bombing and the way in which the local people mobilize to deal with the devastation. He mentions that Yasuko's proposed marriage has “quite suddenly been broken off” (141) because Yasuko is showing symptoms of radiation poisoning.
Chapter 16 Summary
Shigematsu ends his diary of the bombing on August 15, which is “the day the war ended” (142). However, he pauses his transcription because he is worried about Yasuko's illness and busy rearing carp with his friends. He regrets that Yasuko kept her illness hidden for so long; the radiation sickness is rapidly worsening. Shigeko tells Shigematsu that Yasuko has tried to preserve her modesty by treating herself. Now, they can do nothing but provide her with nourishment and support.
The doctor arranges to visit Yasuko every three days. Shigeko keeps a journal of Yasuko's symptoms, and a doctor recommends Shigematsu share the journal with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission as it may be a useful description of the experiences of “a trio of victims” (145). Shigematsu includes extracts from the journal in the narrative. In these extracts, Yasuko suffers from exhaustion, a loss of appetite, abscesses, and hair loss, and she is eventually admitted to hospital. She suffers from infections and parasites. Her teeth loosen, and she suffers from “violent pains every day” (150). Shigematsu and Yasuko's father debate how to pay for her medical expenses.
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
Rumors become a recurring motif throughout Black Rain. Shigematsu is encouraged to return to his diaries by (supposedly) false rumors that say Yasuko suffers from radiation sickness. In his diary entries, he mentions the many rumors that spread through the community in the aftermath of the destruction of Hiroshima. With the benefit of hindsight, the rumors are patently false. Rumors that the Japanese army have their own equivalent of the atomic bomb, an invasion is imminent, or all Japanese men will be castrated by the Americans prove to be false. The older Shigematsu, when reviewing these diary entries, acknowledges the extent to which the rumors were desperate attempts to elicit optimism from the Japanese people following an incredibly traumatic event. To these people, truth becomes a brittle, fickle idea. In the wake of an atomic bomb, optimism and the truth cannot coexist. All that remains is the bleak and pessimistic reality in which tens of thousands of people are dead and many thousands more are poisoned by radiation. In Black Rain, rumors are divorced from reality in a way that speaks to the decimated hope of the Japanese people.
In the diary entries, Shigematsu describes the pain he feels in the days after the explosion. He spends more time in Hiroshima drinking and eating substances that have been exposed to the radiation of the blast. His feet hurt, and the wound on his face does not seem to be healing like a normal wound. These strange sensations are a new kind of pain in the same way that the atomic bomb is a new kind of weapon. The effects and the ramifications of the injuries are not yet known, just as the effects and ramifications of the bomb are not yet known. Shigematsu's physical pain foreshadows the social pain that will be felt for years to come. Shigematsu may think he has survived, but the developing pains in his body hint that the trauma and the suffering will continue to metastasize in unknown ways for years to come.
Throughout these chapters, Shigematsu learns the rumors of Yasuko's sickness may be true. She has recently been diagnosed with radiation sickness and quickly falls ill. Her marriage proposal is immediately cancelled, and she is sent to the hospital, where her condition rapidly deteriorates. The reveal of Yasuko's sickness illustrates the way in which the trauma of the atomic bomb can never go away in the community. A seemingly healthy and attractive young woman is taken ill due to a problem she hoped she had avoided. Instead, the pain and suffering of radiation sickness can take years to manifest. Like the psychological trauma of witnessing so much death and destruction, the radiation lives inside her for years, waiting to take its toll. In an attempt to overcome this reality and prove the rumors wrong, Yasuko hides her condition from her family. She wants to be the strong young woman she believed herself to be, but the brutal reality of radiation sickness means she cannot beat a sickness that has been burned into her cells. The same qualities that distinguished Yasuko as a strong, independent young woman prevent her from admitting the truth and creates a tragic situation in which the rumors regarding her health are accidently, unfairly validated.
