The Enemy
Question 1.
How did Hana help Dr Sadao?
Answer:
Hana helped her husband in the operation. She her-self washed the man.
While Sadao performed the operation, Hana helped him in giving the anaesthetic.
She acted as a nurse while her husband was performing the operation.
Question 2.
Why did the servants leave Dr Sadao’s house?
Answer:
Dr Sadao had given shelter to an enemy soldier. According to the
servants, it was an act of treason. They looked upon the Americans as their
enemies since Japan and America were at war. When they found that instead of
handing over the enemy soldier to the police, Dr Sadao had decided to treat
him, they decided to leave his house.
Question 3.
Why was Dr Sadao not sent to the battlefield?
Answer:
Dr Sadao was a famous surgeon and scientist of Japan. He was perfecting
a discovery to make the wounds completely clean. Besides, he was treating the
old General. The General might need an opertation any time. Therefore, Dr Sadao
was not sent to the battlefield.
Question 4.
How did Dr Sadao get rid of the enemy soldier?
Answer:
Dr Sadao had saved the man with great efforts. He didn’t want him to
hand over to the police and get him killed. Therefore he decided to help the
man get away in his boat’ He loaded his boat with sufficient provisions. He
asked the man to row the boat to a nearby island.
Question 5.
How did Dr Sadao take bullet out of the body of the American soldier?
Answer:
Dr Sadao had to perfom an opertation to take bullet out of the body of
the American soldier. The soldier was given anaesthetic. Dr Sadao felt the tip
of his instrument with some hard object. It was a bullet. Then Dr Sadao probed
with his fingers and took out the bullet with cleanest possible manner.
Question6 .
Who was Dr Sadao? Where was his house?
Ana.
Dr Sadao was a famous Japanese surgeon and scientist. He was working on
a discovery to make wounds completely
clean. His house was set upon rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined
with bent pines.
Question 7.
What did Dr Sadao and his wife do with the man?
Answer:
After Dr Sadao’s treatment the man was now out of danger. But still he
was very weak. If they handed him over to the police, he was sure to be killed.
Therefore, they decided to keep the man with them in their house.
Question 8.
What did Dr Sadao do to get rid of the man?
Answer:
Dr Sadao had saved the man with great efforts. He didn’t want him to
hand over to the police and get him killed. Therefore he decided to help the
man get away in his boat and he loaded his boat with sufficient provisions. He
asked the man to row the boat to a nearby island.
Question 9.
Explain the reaction of the servants in Dr Sadao’s house when he
decided to give shelter to an enemy in the house.
Answer: The servants in Dr Sadao’s house did not like the idea of
giving shelter to an enemy soldier. Yumi, the nurse of the doctor’s child
bluntly refused to wash the white man. She said that she had never and would
never wash a white man. The old gardener was a superstitious man. He said that
there was no business in saving the man.
He told Hana bluntly that the white man ought not to be saved. First he
had been shot. Then the sea had caught him. But when they found that Dr Sadao
was not going to hand over the man to the authorities they thought that he had
turned traitor. They decided to leave his house.
Question 10.
Write in brief the character-sketch of General Takima.
Answer:
General Takima was an old Japanese General. He was a very cruel person.
He used to beat his wife mercilessly. He also tortured the prisoners of war
very ruthlessly. He even had private assassins to have anyone killed. He
offered Dr Sadao to send two of them to kill the American soldier. He said that
they were quite capable and could also remove the dead body of the soldier.
But later he did not do that. In fact there was a selfish motive behind
it. He needed Dr Sadao’s services as a doctor. He didn’t want any problem
should come to him. Therefore, he left the entire matter on Dr Sadao to solve.
He pretended to be a patriot, but in fact he was a very selfish person. Perhaps,
he wanted Dr Sadao to kill the man himself. The General was indeed a very
self-absorbed person.
Question 11.
Dr Sadao faced a dilemma(confusion). Should he use his surgical skills
to save the life of a wounded American or should he hand him over to the Japanese
police? How did he resolve the clash of values?
Answer:
As a doctor, Sadao is taught that he should never let a person die if
he could help. One evening he finds a badly injured enemy soldier on the sea
beach near his house. The man could die if not given proper medical aid. Now,
Dr Sadao uses his surgical skills and perform him an opertation on the man
though he is an enemy soldier. He tends him well and took great care of him. In
this way, Dr Sadao maintains his professional loyalty and he is able to save
the life of the POW with his surgical skills.
But Dr Sadao is a patriotic person also. Therefore he informs
everything to the old General. The Gen-eral ensures him to send his private
assassins to kill the man. However Dr Sadao has saved that man with great
effort. Naturally he does not want any harm should come to that man. Therefore
he helps escape the man in a boat in the end of the story.
Question 12.
How did Dr Sadao help then American to escape? What humanitarian values do you
find in his act?
Answer:
Dr Sadao saved the life of American with great effort. Naturally he did not want
that any harm should come to him and thus all his efforts be wasted. Therefore
he decided to arrange for the escape of that man. Dr Sadao decided to leave his
boat on the seashore. He also decided to load the boat with sufficient
provisions. The American was dressed in Japanese clothes which Sadao had given him,
and at the last moment Sadao wrapped a black cloth about his blond head.He was told to row the boat to a nearby island, where nobody lived
because it remained submerged in the sea most of the year. The doctor displays
finer human values in this story. Though his country is in a state of war with
America, he does not forget his duty and obligations . as a doctor. He saves
the life of the enemy even-at the sake of his life and reputation.
Question 13.
Dr Sadao was compelled by his duty as a doctor to help the enemy
soldier. What made Hana, his wife, sympathetic to him in the face of open
defiance from the domestic staff?
Answer:
Dr Sadao has been trained not to let a person die if he could help. The
enemy soldier is badly wounded. He is sure to die if he is not given proper
medical care. On the other hand, Dr Sadao feels that it is his national duty to
hand the enemy over to the authorities. Dr Sadao’s wife, Hana, understands her
husband well. She has spent great deal of time with him.The house staff of Dr Sadao do not like the idea of harbouring the
enemy soldier. They bluntly refuse to help their master in tending the enemy
soldier. At this juncture, Hana herself washes the enemy soldier and also helps
Dr Sadao in giving anaesthetic to the soldier. She feeds the soldier with her
own hands. However, she likes her husband wants to get rid of the soldier but
she doesn’t know how.
Question 14.
How would you explain the reluctance of the soldier to leave the
shelter of doctor’s home even when he knew he couldn’t stay there wit out risk
to the doctor and himself?
Answer:
The soldier belonged to the American navy. He was prisoner of the war
and somehow he had escaped from the prison. He had a gunshot in his back. It
was Dr Sadao who operated on him and saved his life with great effort. He gave
the American soldier shelter in his house. It was a big crime and Dr Sadao
could be arrested for it. But for Dr Sadao his profession was the first. He was
taught that he should not let the person die if he could help it. Dr Sadao did
his job with complete honesty.He saved the prisoner’s life. The American kept on living there. He
knew that he would be killed if he left Dr Sadao’s house. He had full
confidence in Dr Sadao. He knew that after saving his life Dr Sadao would not
let him die. He left it to the doctor to escape from the problem anyway he
liked. And indeed, Dr Sadao found a way to save the life of the prisoner.
Question 15 : Describe the difficulties faced by Dr Sadao when he decided to help the enemy soldier.
Answer : A wounded American soldier who was bleeding was washed away to Dr Sadao’s doorstep. Japan was at war with America and giving shelter to a US soldier was an anti-national activity for which Dr Sadao could be arrested. He could be severely punished on charges of harbouring an enemy. Dr Sadao also had to face open defiance from his servants who refused to cooperate with him and his wife. They thought that the white man ought to die. Dr Sadao was in a fix. He could not hand over a dying man, even if he was an enemy, to the police and protecting him could lead to Dr Sadao’s arrest. But the ethics of his profession had taught him to save a dying man irrrespective of all things. So putting aside his dilemma he did what he ought to do as a doctor. He not only operated upon and saved the enemy soldier but also arranged for his escape.
Question 16 : Why did Sadao Hoki go to America? Narrate his experiences there.
Answer : Sadao Hoki went to American to study surgery and medicine as it was the wish of his father. His experience of living in America was not very good but he was grateful to have some good professors who taught him well. Also, he was grateful to the professor at whose home he had met Hana and immediately liked her. But he did not like the smell of their food, their small room and the wife of the professor, who was very talkative, although she tried hard to be kind.
Initially, he had faced great difficulty in finding a place to live in America because he was a Japanese. He perceived that Americans were full of prejudice and for him it was a bitter experience to live with them.
Question 17 : Why did Sadao help the American soldier to escape? How did he do it?
Answer : Sadao’s expertise in his profession and compassion as a human being were his most dominant personality traits. As a dutiful doctor, he could not have let the prisoner die of his injuries and so he saved his life. At the same time, he acted like a responsible citizen and informed the General of the presence of the enemy in his house. However, when the General’s men did not come to kill the American, Sadao decided to save his life.
Dr Sadao didn’t want to throw him into the jaws of death again. He asked the young soldier to take his private boat at night. He should row in the cover of darkness to a little deserted island nearby. The young American could live there until he saw a Korean fishing boat pass by. Food, bottled water and two quilts were put inside the boat. If the food ran out, he could signal two flashes.
He was not to signal in darkness because he could be seen. Thus, the young American came down into the darkness of the garden and escaped.