John Hersey's Hiroshima

In John Hersey's journalistic narrative, Hiroshima, the setting has an enormous effect on the characters' lives. When the bomb was dropped in the center of Hiroshima, each of the six main characters (Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, D. Masakazu Fujii, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, and Miss Toshiko Sasaki) was just far enough away from the bomb for it not to be a fatal blow. Each was far enough away to see the devastation, and witness the "noiseless flash," and not be fatally wounded. Unlike many other cities in Japan, Hiroshima had been spared any raids thus far in the war (World War II), and there were rumors that American had saved "something special" for the city. The characters' presence in Hiroshima at that very moment in time had a lasting effect on their lives.

Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge and Miss Toshiko Sasaki are two of the main characters in the novel. Prior to the Hiroshima disaster, Father Kleinsorge and Miss Sasaki did not know each other. While Miss Sasaki lay in the hospital still, eleven weeks after the devastation, she grew morbid and depressed. A friend of hers called on Father Kleinsorge and asked him to visit Miss Sasaki in the hospital. He visited her several times. Knowing she had little interest in living, he kept the conversation general on his first visit, and didn't mention religion. On one of his visits, Miss Sasaki asked him, "If your God is so good and kind, how can he let people suffer like this?" Father Kleinsorge consoled her and answered her questions. Over the next several months, Miss Sasaki began to draw strength from the priest, and was able to walk with crutches. It was Father Kleinsorge's relationship with her that inspired her to convert and become a nun.