THE ENEMY BY PEARL BUCK

About the writer- Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) , also known by
her name Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of
missionaries , Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in Zhenjiang, China. Her novel The Good
Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won
the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich
and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces".[ She
was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

After returning to the US in 1935, she continued writing prolifically and became a prominent
advocate of the women rights and minority groups, and wrote widely on Asian cultures
becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed race adoption.
Main Points-

 Sadao was a Japanese surgeon. He studied in America and returned with Hana, a
Japanese girl whom he met there, and married her in Japan and settled down
comfortably. While most of the doctors were sent to serve the Japanese army in the
World War II, Sadao was allowed to stay home because he was wanted by the old
General who was dying.
 But one night into his uneventful life came an American Navy-man, shot, wounded
and dying. Though unwilling to help his enemy, Sadao took the young soldier into his
house and provided him with medical aid. He was in danger from that moment. Soon
his servants left him. Yet the doctor in Sadao saw that the soldier was getting well
and absolutely alright.
 Once his patient was no more in need of him, the doctor turned out to be his
assassin, conspiring to kill him in his sleep. He informed the General of the
American and the General promised he would send his private men to kill the
American. Sadao awaited the American’s death every morning but to his gloom the
man was still alive, healthier and posing danger to him.
 At this point Sadao becomes the real man in him: a true human being who realizes
the essential worth of human life and universal brotherhood. He thinks beyond
countries and continents and races and wars. He finds no reason to believe that the
American is his enemy. Sadao rescues the American.

Answers

1. Why did Sadao wait to fall in love with Hana?

Both Sadao and his wife Hana were Japanese. Sadao met Hana in America where
both were students. Though he was impressed by her, Sadao hesitated to propose
to her until he was sure that Hana was pure in her race because he knew that his
father wouldn’t love to have her as his son’s wife if she were not pure Japanese.
2. Why was Sadao not sent with Japanese troupes that were in war with
America?
 Sadao was not sent with the Japanese troupes even when the country was in war.
Being a renowned surgeon, he was highly required by the old general who was
under treatment. Also, Sadao was inventing a new medicine that was supposed to
clean wounds entirely.
3. How patriotic was Sadao’s father?
Sadao’s father lived a perfect Japanese life. He was blind about his country and
loved it throughout his life. He never used anything made in a foreign country. He
could not think of a foreign daughter in law. He wanted his son study abroad so that
he could serve Japan for its growth.
4. What were the servants’ superstitions against keeping the American soldier at
Sadao’s home?
The servants didn’t like the American soldier being helped by Sadao and Hana
because they were superstitious. According to them, first the bullet, then the sea and
finally the sharp rocks in the sea tried to kill the soldier but he escaped from all of
them. Now, if Sadao helped the man then the bullet, the sea and the rocks would
turn against him and ruin him and his family.
5. What was Yumi’s excuse for not washing the young American?
Yumi was Sadao’s maid servant, especially in charge of the children. She, like the
other servants, had greatly disliked Sadao’s decision to take care of the American
soldier. She equally disliked washing the man because he was her enemy and she
didn’t want to take risk by helping Sadao and Hana, who she believed, would be
arrested by the police.
6. What were Sadao’s strange habits while performing surgery?
Sadao used to talk to the patients while operating them. When the patient cried or
groaned during the operation, he used talk to him, calling him his friend.
7. What was the most remarkable instruction of his American professor Sadao
had taken into his heart?
Sadao’s anatomy professor used to remind his students that the biggest crime of a
surgeon is his poor knowledge in human anatomy. If a surgeon operates a patient
without perfect knowledge of the human body, he would be killing the patient.
8. How did the servants react to Sadao’s act of taking the American soldier into
the house?
The servants were from the beginning against Sadao’s idea of taking the American
soldier in for whatever reason, to kill or to treat. They openly expressed their
dissatisfaction and made clear that Sadao should not treat the American because
Americans are Japan’s enemies. When they found that Sadao was not yielding to
their wishes, the servants quitted their service at Sadao’s house amidst great pain of
separation.
9. Why did Sadao plot plans to kill the American?
Sadao was a kind-hearted doctor who valued life and considered saving any life to
be his prime concern. Though for this reason he admitted the American in his home
and provided him with all medical support, Sadao turned out to be plotting plans to
 kill him because the American was perfectly cured and therefore the doctor-patient
relation was snapped and he was the American’s enemy.
10. Sadao was a perfect doctor, a pure patriot and clearheaded human being.
Explain.
 Sadao’s life was a happy one. He was one of the happiest men in Japan during
the war. While most of the doctors were on board with the troupes, Sadao was
allowed to remain home with his family. He was rich and enjoyed more liberty
and privilege because he was the old General’s personal surgeon.
 The entry of the American soldier was going to strip all this happiness off him.
Sadao could easily have ignored the American or handed him over to the police
or thrown him back to the sea. The dedicated doctor in him behaved like a
savior for the dying man.
 In spite of the servants’ protest, he took the man in his house and gave him all
the medical aid. He continuously attended to the man and made sure he was
getting better. Once the American was perfectly out of danger, the doctor in
Sadao died and a perfect, patriotic Japanese took birth. Suddenly he became
the enemy and began to plot plans to kill American enemy.
 He awaited the private killers of the General every night and grew disappointed in
the morning to see that the American was still alive. His nights became
sleepless. Having passed through this disappointing time, Sadao finally shifted
to the next and last of his person; he once again wanted to rescue the
American. This time it was not for the fun of exhibiting his surgical skills, nor to
get rid of his enemy.
 This time he did so because he realized that the concept of ENEMY was
abstract. He broke the barriers of narrow mindedness and became a universal
brother. Thus, Sadao was a perfect doctor, a perfect enemy and a perfect
human being.
11. Did Sadao show the equal degree of honesty in rescuing the American at the
end of the story as in operating him? Give instances.
Sadao was very honest towards rescuing the American soldier. It was not for the
sheer pleasure of showing his surgical skills to a small audience of his wife and
servants that Sadao did it. Keeping all his fears and anxieties, he cured the
American for humanitarian reasons. The same degree of honesty was shown when
he rescued him, too. Sadao was not getting rid of a menace. He made sure that the
man really escaped. By providing him with a boat, clothes and food, his favorite
torch light and further instructions in case the food was over, Sadao sent the man
into the sea. He was restless for days concerning the safety of the man wandering in
the dark sea and got his peace of mind only after getting an assurance that the man
was really safe.

1. What does the old general mean by the American sentimentality and the German
brutality? What did he expect from combining both?
The General believed that the Americans were highly emotional and the Germans
 very brutal. According to him, a perfect doctor should have both these qualities. The
doctor should love the patient on one side and be brutal towards his physical pains.
By combining both these qualities, the General expected to make a perfect doctor
out of a man.

Questions

1. Dr. Sadao and Hana rise above man-made divisions to serve the nobler cause of
humanity. Discus with reference to the story.
2. What efforts were made by Sadao and Hana to save the life of the injured soldier?
3. Because Sadao and Hana were different from the other Japanese, they had an
entirely different experience that the rest of the Japanese didn’t have. Explain.
4. What conflict of duties does Sadao face? How does he resolve them?
5. It was the dawning of a universal understanding upon Sadao that he finally did his bit
to rescue the American soldier in spite of the risks that swarmed his life. What is this
universal understanding? What could he have paid for rescuing the American?

6 For Sadao, rescuing the life of the American had more meaning than that of his
General. Do you agree/disagree. Discuss.