Faithful Elephants byYukio Tsuchiya

                    In class, we read the passage "Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People, and War" by Yukio Tsuchiya. It was a touching and tragic story that was about how  three elephants in a zoo in Tokyo had to be put to death because of the war that Japan was in. Because poisoning and injecting didn't work, the only option was to starve the elephants to death. I believe that symbolism plays a large role in this story by helping the reader find the authors purpose and hidden messages within the text.
                           
                   A huge example of symbols in the book are the elephants themselves. I think that the elephants symbolize all of the innocent people that were affected by the war but they didn't do anything wrong. The elephants had done nothing wrong and they were so innocent that they couldn't understand why they were not being fed. Another symbol that involves the elephants is their bonsai trick. The elephants did this because people liked it so when the elephants stopped getting food, they assumed that all they had to do was their bonsai trick and they would get food. The text said "surely their friend would reward them with food and water as he used to do". This quote shows again hoe innocent the elephants were because they thought that the bonsai trick would help. I believe that the bonsai trick might represent the innocent people's efforts to end the war.

                 Another example of symbolism  in the story is when the author described the dropping bombs as rain. He said, "Bombs were dropped on Tokyo day and night like falling rain. I think that this means that the war is coming down hard and fast, just like the falling of rain. Also when it is raining it is usually dark and gray outside so this could also represent how gloomy it was because of the war.

                Another example of a symbol in the story is the cherry blossoms. I think that this symbol is actually connected to the symbol of the bombs falling like rain because like the bombs, the cherry blossoms are falling. But instead of being described as rain-like, they are compared to snow. This symbol is mentioned twice, once at the very beginning of the passage and one at the very end. First of all, I think that the cherry blossoms might represent spring, because when they are mentioned in the beginning it may represent a rebirth of the zoo after the war because spring can represent rebirth. This is also because in this new zoo there are three new elephants to replace the old ones.

                So when the cherry blossoms are compared to that of snowflakes I think it represents how the situation has calmed down, because as I said before, the rain is falling down hard but snowflakes drift softly and calmly. It could also be that the war had frozen over like a frozen over rain droplet is a snowflake. So I think these to things symbolize how the situation has changed.

                Overall, "Faithful Elephants" by Yukio Tcuchiya is a tragic and wonderful tale supported by all of the symbols the author added to make the story more interesting. These symbols including the elephants, the bonsai trick, the falling bombs, and the cherry blossoms, were very well written. All these symbols helped the story be more than just words on paper, they helped "Faithful Elephants" a place in our hearts as well,.

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