Faithful Elephants is a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching story about three elephants who used to live in a Japanese zoo during World War 2. The story begins with a beautiful day at the zoo in modern times. There are cherry blossoms everywhere and the sun is shining. The reader is expecting a pleasant and light narrative (at least I did). Then a zoo employee begins to tell a tale of the three elephants. Suddenly, we are plunged into a melancholic flashback. The transition between the exposition and rising action is short and abrupt, but is well written and does not confuse the reader.
"Not far from the cheerful square, there stands a tombstone." This is the beginning of the rising action. It signals the readers that the story is not about what we think it might be. I also think the sentence itself is kind of a metaphor, as it states that the tombstone, a symbol of grief and death, is close to the cheerful square filled with happy visitors, which is a sign of rebirth and euphoria. The author might have tried to tell the readers that even after something horrible, things can still get better.
We then meet the zookeeper, who tells the story of the three elephants that were buried under the tombstone- John, Tonky, and Wanly. He states that when the war began, the army ordered the zoo to kill all large and dangerous animals, including the elephants. One thing I noticed about the way he talked about the elephants was the fact that he described them like humans, especially Tonky and Wanly. "These two had always gazed at people with loving eyes. They were sweet and gentle-headed." The zookeepers try many ways to kill the elephants painlessly, but none of the options work and they have no choice but to starve them to death. This is the most depressing part of the story and made me cringe just reading about the agonizing way the sweet elephants die. I personally thought that starving the elephants to death was unnecessary and that the zookeepers should have found another way to kill the elephants even though most of the options didn't work. I just couldn't bring myself to accept the fact that something so horrible like that could happen. The most heartbreaking thing that happened in the story is when the two elephants, in the midst of starving to death, perform a trick with the little strength they had left, hoping that their trainer would bring them food and water. This tells the readers that the elephants believed that the zookeepers starved them because they thought they did something wrong, while in reality the zookeepers were dying to let the gentle elephants live.
The two elephants finally die after two excruciating weeks. In their last days, their eyes appear "clearer and more beautiful than ever". This is a metaphor that tells the readers that while the elephants suffered a lot, they died peacefully. I think the author might have even tried to tell us readers that the elephants have gone to "heaven". The elephants' death was personally a huge relieve for me because it meant that the poor elephants no longer felt pain and went to a better place. After realizing that the animals have passed away, the zookeepers gather around Tonky and Wanly's cage. They desperately shake their limp bodies in an attempt to wake them up. Meanwhile, enemy planes fly over the zoo and continue dropping bombs on Tokyo. The zookeepers then scream at the planes, urging them to stop all wars. The author inserts a very anti-war message in this part of the story and clearly accuses wars of impacting so many lives negatively.
We are abruptly pulled back from the flashback to real life. There is a great change of tone; the feel of the story is once again peaceful and solemn. The zookeeper pats the tombstone "tenderly" as cherry blossoms fall onto the grave. This is another reminder that even after a great tragedy like the death of the elephants or the war, things do get better, and that calamities that were once harrowing memories become symbols of redemption.
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