The Enemy
Previous Year Questions
1. Why did the messenger
come to Dr. Sadao? (2020)
Ans: The
general was very ill. He was in pain and required medical treatment
immediately. He had faith only in Sadao’s medical capabilities. With his
orders, the messenger came to Dr. Sadao. Hana thought that the general would
penalise her husband for giving shelter to an enemy.
2. Who was Dr. Sadao?
Where was his house?
(2022)
Ans: Dr.
Sadao Hoki was a famous Japanese surgeon and scientist. He was famous for his
art of healing the wounds. He lived in a house built on the Japanese coast. His
square stone house was set upon rock above a narrow beach. The beach was
outlined with bent pines.
3.Who was Hana? What did
she notice coming out of the mist? (2022)
Ans: Hana
is Dr. Sadao Hoki's wife. The couple met at a university in America, but
“waited to fall in love” until Hoki's father hinds her as a pure Japanese. She saw
something black come out of the mists. It turned out to be a man, as if flung
up out of the ocean.
4. Why did the servants
leave Dr. Sadao’s house? 2023
Ans:
Japan was at war with America and Dr Sadao was nursing a wounded American
soldier and so the servants’ patriotic feelings made them leave Dr Sadao’s
house. They also thought that their lives were in danger because of nursing a
prisoner of war in the house.
Additional
Questions
1. Will Dr Sadao be
arrested on the charge of harbouring an enemy?
Ans.
Dr Sadao knew that they would be arrested if they sheltered a white man in
their house. Since Japan was at war with America, harbouring an enemy meant
being a traitor to Japan. Dr Sadao could be arrested if anyone accused him of
harbouring an enemy.
2. Will Hana help the
wounded man and wash him herself?
Ans. When
the servants denied, Hana she dipped a small dean towel into the steaming hot
water and washed the white man’s face. She kept on washing him until his upper
body was quite dean. But she dared not turn him over.
3. What will Dr Sadao and
his wife do with the man?
Ans. Dr
Sadao operated upon the white man and extracted the bullet from his body. He
kept the white man in his house. He and his wife looked after him and fed him
till he was strong enough to walk on his legs.
4. What will Dr Sadao do
to get rid of the man?
Ans. Dr
Sadao had told the old General that he had operated upon a white man. The
General promised to send his private assassins to kill the man. He waited
anxiously for three nights but nobody came. He finally arranged a boat and set
him free.
SHORT
ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS
1. Why was Dr Sadao being
kept in Japan and not sent abroad with the troops?
Ans.
Sadao was an eminent surgeon and a scientist. He was perfecting a discovery
which would render wounds entirely clean. Secondly, the old General was being
treated medically for a condition for which he might need an operation. Due to
these two reasons Sadao was being kept in Japan and not sent abroad with the
troops.
2. Who was Sadao’s wife?
Where had he met her? Why did he wait to fall in love with her?
Ans. Hana is Dr. Sadao Hoki's wife. The couple met at a professor’s house of a university in America, but “waited to fall in love” until Hoki's father hinds her as a pure Japanese.
3. ‘Both of them saw
something black came out of the mists’. What did they see and how did they
react to it?
Ans.
It was a man who had been flung up out of the ocean, to his feet by a breaker.
He staggered a few steps with his arms above his head. Sadao thought that he
was perhaps a fisherman. He ran quickly down the steps. Hana followed him.
4. What did Sadao learn about
the white man’s wound?
Ans.
Sadao saw that a gun-wound had been reopened on the right side of his lower
back. The flesh was blackened with powder. The man had been shot recently. It
was bad chance that the rock had struck the wound and reopened it.
5. What dilemma did Sadao
face about the young white man?
Ans.
The white man was wounded. He needed immediate medical care. Dr Sadao could do
so. But if they sheltered a white man in their house, they would be arrested.
On the other hand, if they turned him over as a prisoner, he would certainly
die. Dr Sadao was in a fix. It was difficult for him to come to any decision.
6. What was the attitude
of Sadao and Hana towards the white man?
Ans.
They stared upon the inert figure of the white man with a curious repulsion.
Both talked of putting him back into the sea, but neither of them was able to
do so alone.
7. What solution did Hana
offer to resolve Sadao’s predicament?
Ans.
Hana found that neither of them could throw the white man back into the sea.
They must carry the man into their house. They must tell the servants that they
intended to hand him over to the police. She reminded her husband of his
position and children. It would endanger all of them if they did not give that
man over as a prisoner of war.
8. How did Sadao and Hana
take the man inside their house?
Ans.
Together they lifted the man. He was very light. His arms were hanging down.
They carried him up the steps and into the side door of the house. This door
opened into a passage. They laid the man on the deeply matted floor.
9. Why did Dr Sadao had
to touch the man? What did he observe?
Ans.
The utter pallor of the man’s unconscious face moved Dr Sadao first to stoop
and feel his pulse. It was faint but it was there. The heart too was yet alive.
He observed that the man would die unless he was operated on.
10. How did the servants
react when their master told them about the wounded white man?
Ans.
The servants were frightened and puzzled. The old gardener said that the white
man ought to die. First, he was shot. Then the sea caught him and wounded him
with her rocks. If the master healed what the gun and the sea had done, they
would take revenge on them.
11. Why had Hana to wash
the wounded man herself?
Ans.
Hana told Yumi to fetch hot water and bring it to the room where the white man
was. Yumi put down the wooden bucket, but refused to wash the dirty white man.
Under these circumstances, Hana had no option but to wash the white man
herself.
12. What forced Dr Sadao
to be impatient and irritable with his patient?
Ans.
Sadao heard Hana retching in the garden and said that it would be better for
her to empty her stomach. He had forgotten that she had never seen an operation.
But her distress and his inability to go to her at once made him impatient and
irritable with the man who lay like dead under his knife.
13. What instructions did Sadao give to Hana to administer the anaesthetic and when?
Ans.
The man was beginning to stir. Hana asked Sadao where the anaesthetic was. She
now had the bottle and some cotton in her hand. Sadao instructed her to
saturate the cotton with anaesthetic and hold it near the man’s nostrils.
14. In what context does
Hana remember General Takima? What does she infer?
Ans.
General Takima was a ruthless despot. At home he beat his wife cruelly. No one
mentioned it now because he had won a victory in a battle in Manchuria. Hana
remembers him in the context of the sufferings of the prisoners of war. She
infers that if a man could be so cruel to a woman in his power, he would be
quite cruel to a prisoner.
15. How did Harm look
after the white man? How did he react?
Ans.
Hana had to serve him herself, for none of the servants would enter the room.
She did not like him and yet she was moved to comfort him. She found the man
quite weak and terrified. She knelt and fed him gently from the porcelain
spoon. He ate unwillingly but still he ate.
16. What did Hana inform
Sadao about the servants? How did Sadao react to it?
Ans.
The servants felt that they could not stay there if their master sheltered the
white man there any more. Dr Sadao protested that it was not true. Americans were
their enemies. But he had been trained not to let a man die if he could help
him. Hana told him that the servants could not understand it.
17. What two things
happened on the seventh day after that?
Ans.
In the morning the servants left together with their belongings tied in large
square cotton kerchiefs. Hana paid them off gracefully and thanked them for all
that they had done for her. In the afternoon, a messenger came to the door in
official uniform.
18. How did Hana react
when she saw a messenger at the door in official uniform?
Ans.
Hana was working hard on unaccustomed labour. When she saw the uniformed
messenger, her hands went weak and she could not draw her breath. She feared
that the servants must have told everything already. She thought that they had
come to arrest Dr Sadao.
19. Why did Dr Sadao tell
the General everything about the man he had operated upon?
Ans.
Dr Sadao wanted to get rid of the man for the sake of his wife. He did not care
for that man, but since he had operated upon the man, he could not kill him.
The General praised his skill, called him indispensable and promised that he
would allow nothing to happen to Dr Sadao.
20. How was the plan of
the prisoner’s escape executed?
Ans.
Dr Sadao had put food and bottled water in his stout boat. He also put two
quilts. After supper, he cheked the American again. He gave him his flashlight
and told him to signal two flashes if he needed more food. One signal would
mean he was all right. He had to signal at sunset and not in the darkness.
21. What did Sadao tell
the General after a week? Why did he wait that long?
Ans.
The General had undergone an emergency operation a week before. The gall
bladder was involved. He was in critical state for twelve hours. After a week
Sadao felt that the General was well enough to be spoken to about the prisoner.
He told the General that the prisoner had escaped.
22. What did the General tell
Dr Sadao about his promise to kill the prisoner for him?
Ans.
Dr Sadao did not want to disturb the General much. So, he simply said that the
prisoner had escaped. The General at once remembered his promise. He confessed
that he had been suffering a great deal. He forgot his promise, but it was not
lack of patriotism or dereliction of duty.
Broad
Notes
1.Write
a character sketch of Dr Sadao as depicted in the story The Enemy. 2019
Ans: ‘The
Enemy’ by Pearl S Buck, is the story of a kind, considerate, and Japanese
doctor. Dr. Sadao Hoki is the protagonist of the story and Hana’s husband. He
is caring towards his wife, servants, General and especially to his nation.
Sadao
Hoki was both an expert surgeon in the art of healing wounds and a scientist as
well. At the age of 22, his father sent him to America to study surgery and
medicine. There he fell in love with Hana. However, he waited until his
father’s approval and married her only after the approval. This shows Hoki’s
obedience towards father as a child.
The
best traits of his personality come to light when risking his own life and the
entire family he dares to save an enemy. Japan and America were at war in the
World War II. During this one American POW, Tom is washed ashore near his home.
Sadao saves him. He faces opposition from his servants but he knows his
responsibilities as a doctor. He is a man of clear conscience.
He
was very generous and loyal to his country. Being a patriot, he declared
everything to the General and was ready to face the consequences. This shows
that both Dr. Sadao was sympathetic, loyal, patriot, compassionate and honest person.
Thus, Dr. Sadao played role of a kind-hearted person and a fine doctor who had
done his work as a human being in “The Enemy”.
2.
There are moments in life when we have to make hard choices between our roles
as private individuals and as citizens with a sense of national loyalty.
Discuss with reference to the story, “The Enemy”.
Ans: Life
has many facets. We live it by maintaining a delicate balance between the
various facets it offers to us as part of our existence as an individual in a
society. Living for our own self, family, profession and country are just a few
of them. However, at times, it becomes difficult to maintain this balance, and
gets overpowered by confusion and dilemmas.
The
story about Dr Sadao, Hana and the war prisoner exemplifies this. It revolves
around the thought of moral and human values and the responsibility as a
Japanese. Dr. Sadao, the protagonist is in a dilemma. He chose to act as a
doctor whose moral and ethical responsibility is to save the soldier, doesn’t matter
he was an enemy. But as a normal Japanese he should have got him arrested so
that he cannot be called as a traitor.
But
as a doctor and a human his first duty was to help and cure the enemy. So, he
put his life in risk and helped him. Also, he showed his patriotism as well as
nationalism by informing the general but the general didn’t do anything so he
again helped him and made him escaped from the country.
Note:
No question was given in the year 2024
2025
Who
was Hana? What did she notice coming out of the mist?
Ans:
Question
No 3 and Page No 1
Why
did Dr. Sadao Hoki go to America? Narrate his experiences there.
Ans:
Dr.
Sadao Hoki went to America to study surgery and medicine. His father, who took
education very seriously, sent him there at the age of twenty-two. Sadao
respected his father’s wishes and worked hard to become a skilled doctor.
In America, Sadao faced difficulties because of prejudice against the Japanese. He found it hard to get proper housing, and some people treated him unfairly. Sadao strongly disliked the lady who rented him a room in her house which was in a bad state. Despite this, he worked hard and trained under a skilled anatomy professor.
He
was grateful to have a good professor who taught him well and whom he was close
to. It was at the professor’s place where he met Hana, a Japanese woman
studying in America, whom he later married. He particularly didn’t like the
smell of the food cooked, their small room and the professors wife who was very
talkative.
After
eight years, Sadao returned to Japan at thirty as a highly skilled surgeon and
scientist. His training in America helped him develop a life-saving medical
technique, which made him famous.
Though
he disliked the ignorance and rudeness of some Americans, he valued the
knowledge he gained.
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