Black Rain The main character of the novel resembles me in a way. Mr. Shizuma is a person who is intrigued by many things and likes to see what reaction people have to any action. Throughout the novel, he feels the need to travel to different parts of the city and surrounding communities in order to see the effects of the unknown bomb. Mr. Shizuma was not only interested in what happened to the people in the community, but he also wanted to find out what the weapon used was called and made from. Different names have been given to the bomb throughout the book and he summarizes the names in one paragraph. The name of the bomb had already undergone a number of changes, from the initial new weapon to the bomb of a new type, the secret weapon, the new special weapon. -type bomb, a special bomb of large capacity. That day I learned for the first time to call it an atomic bomb. (Black Rain 282) The importance of the bomb's name may seem ineffective, but it seems to dwell on uncovering the cause of this type of destruction. Another thing Mr. Shizuma wants to do is remember every little detail of what happens to everything from what angle the house was at after the bomb to what his wife cooked for the dinner with food rationing. He even enjoys writing about how people cured themselves of radiation sickness and what burns and other injuries look and behave like. These things are like me in that he doesn't like to forget what things look like, wants to see first hand what the effects are, and is very interested in finding out information about new things he's never seen previously. He also greatly enjoys helping people such as his constant wanderings in search of coal for his community. If we counted on you, would you help your community? I think so. The theme that sticks out to me is that war hurts two different parts of a country. First there are the military, who we haven't really talked about, and then there are the civilians. The civilians have to ration food so the military can eat, and then they also have to suffer because the bomb that was dropped was not intended for a military base but to destroy and kill a city. The theme is clear in that it does much more harm to civilians than to military personnel and that war is very, very cruel. People who were rationing had very little to eat, and this amount decreased as the war continued. People were forced to raise carp in small groups and search for mussels in ponds in order to obtain any type of meat. By the end of the war there were no mussels left in any of the many streams and there were also no fish in any of the ponds. The only thing that survived were the eels that were seen swimming in the river a day before the surrender. It was a sign of rebirth. It only took a year after the Hiroshima bombing for the country to surrender and during that time the government failed to help any of the people actually affected by the war, the civilians. It was strange that people felt any remorse for losing the war when the government they were supposed to believe in had left them homeless and without food. Innocent, unarmed people killed and maimed by a weapon that could kill the entire planet. For what purpose was the bomb dropped? Mr. Shizuma made numerous remarks about how if the opposition had only waited a little longer, they would not have had to drop the bomb because the country was collapsing internally. It seems to me that the dropping of the bomb was for the opposition only a.