Faithful Elephants

In the story “Faithful Elephants” by Yukio Tsuchiya, World War II is going on. The story takes place at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, Japan. In the story a zoo keeper is retelling a flashback about the zoo having to put down the dangerous animal in the zoo. The 3 elephants, Tonky, Wanly, and John are the main characters of this flashback. Everyone loves them dearly but because the army ordered them to they had to put them down.

Usually when the elephants Tonkly and Wanly, did their bonsai trick they would be fed. The zoo keepers had to starve them in order to kill them. Something I noticed from reading and analyzing the story was the innocence that the elephant had. They never understood why they weren’t being fed. So when they did their bonsai trick for the zoo keeper and he didn’t feed them, they felt confused. They didn’t understand why they weren’t being fed so they gave up with only the smallest bit of energy left inside their weary bodies.

In one part of the story it says “they just lay on their sides, hardly able to see the white clouds floating in the sky over the zoo. However, their eyes appeared more beautiful than ever”. I felt that the author was trying to show that in death there is beauty. The elephants are dying but their beauty outshines the pain they’re going through. 

As the book comes to an end the elephant trainer scrams to the sky, “STOP THE WAR!!!” after the last 2 elephants dies. Besides it being an obvious way for the author to tell the readers’ war is not okay and it needs to stop, it brings me to think about the people of Japan at that time. The elephants are sort of like the people of Japan. When bombs were dropping they were confused or felt lost with nowhere to go. Those are exactly some of the emotions the Japanese were feeling at that time.

To conclude, “Faithful Elephants” is a heartwarming story of life and death. It shows how the greater things can overcome the bad things, no matter how much loss can come from it. That letting go of something so close is far much worse than staying with them. The author really tries to get the message through that life throws some hard punches but you have to experience them first, before you send them fleeing back.