A Response to Faithful Elepants by Yukio Tsuchiya

     Our class just finished reading "Faithful Elephants" by Yukio Tsuchiya. This is a sad but very beautiful story about three elephants, John, Tonky and Wanly. These aren't any three ordinary elephants, they can do tricks and have different emotions and feelings throughout the book.

     One day, the zoo gets an order from the army, that they have to kill all their large, dangerous animals. At this time, World War II was going on. The army worried that the bombs would drop and free dangerous animals to roam through the streets. Throughout the book, I have been noticing how much the elephants are treated like humans. 

     In the beginning of the story, John, Tonky, and Wanly displayed feelings. They are happy and joyful. They are enjoying the beautiful day and they feel accomplished about what they are doing. In the story it states, "two elephants are outside performing tricks for a lively audience." This one sentence shows us that the audience is happy and cheering the elephants on. We can infer that just like a human would be, the elephants are accomplished, happy and motivated because of the "lively" audience. 

     As the story progresses, the elephants start to be starved because there isn't another choice. The elephants feel confused and hungry. They don't understand why they aren't getting fed. "They stood on their hind legs and lifted their front legs up as high as they could. Then, raising their trunks high in the air, they did their banzai trick." The banzai trick is a very important and difficult trick the elephants do, you could say it's their signature move. When the elephants normally did their banzai trick, they fed. This piece of text shows that the elephants don't know why they are not being fed. If a human was taken away from food, the person would try to get some or figure out why they are not given food. This ties back to the idea of giving the elephants, human emotion. 

      An important symbol in this book is the cherry blossom tree. I think that the tree represents the elephants' existence. In the beginning when the elephants are happy and it's a beautiful day, the cherry blossoms are beautiful and bloomed. "The cherry blossoms are in full bloom at the Ueno Zoo." At this part in the story, the cherry blossoms have the same personality as the elephants. The Elephants are happy and are performing and alive.

     Towards the end of the story, when the elephants are already dead, the cherry blossoms start to die off. "He was still patting the tombstone tenderly as the cherry blossoms fell on the grave like snowflakes." This means to me the while the elephants are dying, the cherry blossoms are too.

     In conclusion, the elephants are given emotions and feelings. We feel like the elephants are actual characters. I think that Tsuchiya gives the elephants subtle parts of personification. The cherry blossom tree really stands out to me in a way where I see how the tree symbolizes the elephants' lives.