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 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Shigematsu Shizuma lives in the village of Kobatake in Japan. He and his wife Shigeko have become the guardians of their niece, Yasuko. They are responsible for finding her a “suitable husband” (10), but they encounter a vicious rumor every time they think that they have found a suitable match. According to the rumor, Yasuko had been working in a school kitchen near the city of Hiroshima when the United States Army dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945. People worry that Yasuko suffers from radiation sickness and that Shigematsu and his wife are hiding this fact from Yasuko’s potential husbands. The rumor is “pure fabrication” (10); rumors and gossip were banned in Japan during World War II, but they now run wild. The persistent rumor about Yasuko's radiation sickness will not go away.
The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Most inhabitants in the city were killed, and the people who visited the ruins of the city in the aftermath died painfully due to radiation sickness. The new weapon used by the Americans “plunged hundreds of thousands of blameless residents of the city into a hell of unspeakable torments” (11). In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, nearby towns and villages sent parties to survey the destruction. They found the streets littered with burned corpses. The few survivors groan in agony, and their names are written on their charred, mangled skin. The doctors have no idea how to treat the wounds caused by the new weapon. Later, Shigematsu learned about this pain and suffering from someone who was in one of the search parties. Shigematsu lived many miles away and also exhibited symptoms of radiation poisoning. Radiation sickness patients demonstrated “an unexplained lethargy and a heaviness of the limbs” (13); their hair and teeth fell out and, a short time later, they died. The only known cures are rest and nourishing food.
Shigematsu was diagnosed with radiation sickness, but Yasuko was not. Even four years and nine months after the bomb, she shows no symptoms, but the rumors persist. When the latest marriage proposal collapses for the same reason, both Yasuko and Shigeko weep. Yasuko shows Shigematsu a diary she kept during the period of the bombing. He plans to copy out the diary to show to potential husbands that Yasuko was not affected by radiation.
In diary entries covering August 5 to August 9, Yasuko tells her employer at a factory that she plans to travel to the countryside with her aunt and uncle. She describes the talk of the “black smoke” (15) rising from Hiroshima on August 6. Yasuko and her family are not near Hiroshima on the day of the bombing, but they deal with the horrific aftermath, feeding the refugees and survivors who arrive at their bomb shelter. Yasuko describes the panic and paranoia during the period as she went to inspect the damage in the city.
Chapter 2 Summary
Shigematsu asks Shigeko to help him transcribe Yasuko's diary. This allows him to spend more time fishing with his friends, Shokichi and Asajiro. The three men are the village's remaining radiation sickness survivors. They accept the doctors' recommendation that they go fishing to rest themselves, even though doing so breeds resentment among the other villagers, who are busy working on farms. A widow accuses them of “taking advantage of being caught in the raid” (21) to get out of work. The three men are annoyed and claim that “everyone's forgotten” (22) the devastation of the bomb. Rather than just fish, the men decide to rear carp in the lake as a more productive venture that will be free from criticism. They keep 3,000 carp fry in a nearby pond and nurture them until the fish will be large enough to release into the lake.
When Shigematsu returns home from the pond, he and Shigeko debate whether they should remove a reference to the radioactive black rain from the diary. The black rain, she says, might give people “the wrong idea” (24) about Yasuko's health. Shigematsu sits down to read through the diary. Yasuko describes how the black rain fell on her in the days after the bomb fell, ruining her clothes and staining her skin. Shigematsu decides he will show the families of prospective husbands (and the go-betweens and the representatives who traditionally arrange marriages) his own diary. He was two kilometers from the center of the bomb site while Yasuko was eight kilometers away. He hopes that showing his own diary will illustrate the difference between the two and show that Yasuko is healthy. He reads his own diary entry from the day of the bombing. He had been at a station, boarding a train, when a bright flash of light threw the world into dark chaos.
Chapter 3 Summary
The next day, Shigematsu and Shigeko discuss whether they should use higher-quality ink while copying the diaries to preserve the writing for longer. They inspect old letters from family members to see how much the ink types fade over time. Seeing how much the ink has faded, Shigematsu decides to begin the transcribing process with a brush and Chinese ink. He turns again to his diary.
On the day of the bombing, Shigematsu wanders through the ruined city. He passes dust-covered wounded people, ambling through the streets as they succumb to their injuries. People cry and scream. Women clutch babies, and the elderly drop to their knees in prayer. Shigematsu has a wound on his cheek that turns “a funny color” (31), but he has no recollection of hitting his face against anything. He and a friend follow the disorientated, dying crowd. They wash the dust from their bodies, drink water, and search for lost items. On the street, Shigematsu witnesses a scene between two young brothers: one brother is so injured that the other struggles to recognize him. Shigematsu parts with his friend and then walks home along the train tracks. He silently accompanies a young boy past fire and smoke. In the distance, a mushroom-shaped cloud looms over Hiroshima. Shigematsu leaves the boy with a woman and tries to cross a blocked railway bridge; 2,000 injured, confused refugees are trying to do the same. Shigematsu crosses and walks up the hill to his home through the heaving throng of injured, disorientated, confused, and dying people of all ages.
Chapter 4 Summary
Shigematsu pauses his diary transcription to eat dinner. He remembers the food he ate during the war and encourages Shigeko to write “about the abominable kind of stuff” (42) they were forced to eat. He wants to add these menus to the diary for the sake of posterity. Shigeko suggests they recreate the meal they ate on August 6, 1945, every year to remember the meagre diet that sustained them at time. She writes about the families “Diet in Wartime Hiroshima” (43) and the strict rationing the Japanese people faced. As the war dragged on, the quantity and quality of the rations “gradually went down” (44). By the time the air raids started, Shigeko and others were forced to forage for leaves, weeds, and clams in the countryside.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Black Rain weaves together two distinct narratives. The framing story takes place several years after the atomic bomb falls on Hiroshima. This part of the narrative employs a third person omniscient narrator to tell the story of Shigematsu and his attempts to find a husband for his niece Yasuko. To dispel rumors that she is suffering from radiation sickness, he turns to the diaries he kept during the final days of World War II. He transcribes these diaries for the benefit of potential future family members to illustrate that Yasuko was far away from Hiroshima and could not be suffering from the radiation sickness that has affected him. The transcription of the diary entries provides the secondary narrative. The diaries are written by Shigematsu in the first person. His diaries (and later other people's diary entries) describe the events of August 6 and the ensuing days while the framing narrative shows how the pain and trauma of these days has not gone away. The use of the dual narratives allows the novel to create a natural contrast between the chaotic violence of 1945 and the exhausted attempts to return to reality in later years. This juxtaposition reveals the deep-seated nature of the trauma and reveals to the audience that, even after years, the events of the past are never far away.
Shigematsu transcribes the diary because he wants to prove Yasuko could not possibly have radiation sickness. However, the process has an additional benefit for the old man whose health was ruined by the experiences of August 6. Shigematsu returns to the days that shaped the rest of his life in an attempt to regain control over his own story. Since those chaotic, traumatic days, his health has deteriorated. He cannot work in his village, and he feels ashamed that he cannot contribute to his community. Furthermore, he feels guilty that his sickness may have damaged his niece's reputation. Shigematsu feels a loss of control in his life due to the bombing of Hiroshima. The traumatic events have shaped his life beyond his control and, by returning to the diaries and carefully transcribing them for future generations, he hopes to claw back some semblance of agency and control. Each diary entry is carefully read, considered, and then replicated. This transcription process is a demonstration of control: Shigematsu is taking ownership of his past and accepting the way in which his actions during that period have come to shape his present. He may not be able to cure his sickness or change his past, but he is able to accept what happened. The diary transcription becomes part of an emotional healing process.
The extent to which the events of August 6, 1945, have shaped the lives of the characters is hinted at during the diary entries. Shigematsu describes what he saw on the day of the bombing. With the benefit of hindsight, small images and moments take on additional meaning. Both the audience and Shigematsu review the diary entries with a sense of dramatic irony. Now that he suffers from radiation sickness, Shigematsu knows about the power of the atomic bomb and the radiation it spread over the ruined city. The audience, in addition, is likely to know that the time Shigematsu spends in the ruins of Hiroshima is causing him problems. Each hour he spends in the city, each time he drinks radiated water, and everything he touches could be the cause of the radiation sickness he suffers later in his life. Sights like the giant mushroom cloud seem incidental and almost mystical to the Shigematsu writing the diary. The irradiated cloud covering the survivors in poisonous dust is—to the version of Shigematsu who is transcribing the diaries and to the audience—a horrific image. The cloud becomes a symbol of the way in which the bombing of Hiroshima will tower over the characters for the rest of their lives.
