Question -
Answer -
A wounded and unconscious young American prisoner of war was found outside their house. Dr. Sadao and his wife Hana were puzzled as to what they should do with him. Firstly, they thought of throwing him back into the sea. But Hana continued to stare down at the motionless man. Their dilemma was that if they sheltered a white man in their house they would be arrested; and if they turned him over to police as a prisoner, he would certainly die.
Hana said that the kindest thing would be to put him back into the sea. But neither of them moved. They were staring with a “curious repulsion” upon the motionaless figure. Hana said to her hushand that if the man couldn’t be handed to the police because he was fatally wound nor they could throw him back to the sea, then there was only one thing to do.
They must carry him into the house. She said that they must simply tell to the servants that they intend to give him to the police, as indeed they must. Thus they had both agreed, on humanitarian ground, to take the wounded man to their home.
When her servant Yumi refused to wash the white man, Hana decided to wash the man herself, whom she considered “a wounded helpless man”. She, of course, did not do so because she had any sympathy for him. She was just helping her husband who as a doctor would not possibly let a human being die if he could help him.
Being a kind-hearted woman she thought of him as a wounded helpless human being first though he was an enemy of whom she wanted to get rid of. If at all she was sympathetic or kind-hearted, she had such feelings for him as a human being who would die if he is not treated and not as an American prisoner of war. That is why she did what she thought was right despite the open defiance from all of her servants.