Faithful Elephants

     In the story "Faithful Elephants" by Yukio Tsuchiya, Japan was at war with America.  Japan was fighting not only America but their own people and they didn't even know it. 

     When the army gave orders to the Ueno Zoo to poison all their dangerous animals to death, in the army's eyes, they just saw animals, but the trainers and zoo keepers saw more than that. They valued them as if they were their own children.  In the text it says, "All this while, the elephants' trainers loved them as if they were his own children," which showed what a loss the elephants were to the zoo.

     Poisoning the three elephants was very hard on the trainers.  It was as if they were poisoning their own family.  In the story it said "All the keepers could do was pace in front of the cage and moan, 'you poor, poor pitiful elephants.'"  The fact that the trainer was pacing in front of the cage really showed the trainer's emotions and that the trainer and the zoo were in a conflict of person versus self because they had to follow orders to kill the elephants, but as they had to follow through with the orders, it was simultaneously tearing their hearts apart.  But the conflict then becomes person versus society/war because in the text it said "Still clinging to the elephants, the trainer's raise their fists to the sky and implored stop the war!  Stop the war!  Stop all wars!"  

     But in the end, the trainers realized that the tragedy of having to kill the elephants made the once at war Japan seem so much more peaceful.  And they gained the life lesson of learning what peace truly is.