The Enemy

Q1. Who was Dr Sadao? Where was his house?

Ans. Dr Sadao Hoki was an eminent Japanese surgeon and scientist. He had spent eight valuable
years of his youth in America to learn all that could be learnt of surgery and medicine there. He was
perfecting a discovery which would render wounds entirely clean.
Dr Sadao’s house was built on rocks well above a narrow beach that was outlined with bent pines.
It was on a spot of the Japanese coast.

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
you have just read.
A. Dr. Sadao is trapped in a dilemma. On one hand, being a doctor having moral and ethical
responsibility to save the wounded soldier and on the other hand, being a patriot, to let the enemy
die or hand him over to the army. He fulfils his ethical responsibility, saves the man, risks his own
life, his family, and reputation and then later, as a patriot plans to get him killed with the help of the
army general. Later on again, he helps him escape which reflects his true personality.

3. Dr Sadao was compelled by duty as a doctor to help the enemy soldier. What made Hana, his
wife, sympathetic to him in the face of open defiance from the domestic staff?

Answer
Dr Sadao and Hana knew that their decision to save the enemy soldier would be questioned by
everyone. However, they firmly followed their sense of duty. For Dr Sadao this sense of duty came
from the profession he was in; but for Hana, the duty was purely humanitarian. From bearing the
unrest in her domestic staff to being forced to do all the chores of house-hold herself, she does all
with grace and dignity. Hana’s loving, considerate and sympathetic nature shines out. It is also
apparent from the story that she respected her husband, and as a sense of duty towards him, did the
needful. This explains why she, even after feeling sick, comes back to the room and readily does
whatever is told by her husband during the operation.

4. How would you explain the reluctance of the soldier to leave the shelter of the doctor’s home
even when he knew he couldn’t stay there without risk to the doctor and himself? 

Answer

When the American war prisoner came to consciousness and realized that he was saved by a
Japanese family, he feared that he will be soon handed over to the army. However, as he noticed the
amount of concern and care given to him by the family, he understood that he was in safe hands. He
knew that although he was a threat to the doctor’s family, his own life might be saved there.
Burdened with gratitude towards the family, he ultimately decides to comply with what the doctor
planned for him - the escape.
5. What explains the attitude of the General in the matter of the enemy soldier? Was it human
consideration, lack of national loyalty, dereliction of duty or simply self absorption?

Answer

The General was totally governed by self absorption. He was a patient of Dr Sadao and did not trust
anyone except him when it came to his health. He could not take the risk of living unprotected if the
doctor was executed for treachery. He had personal assassins whom he promised to use for killing
the injured soldier. But ironically, he ‘forgot’ his promise to help the doctor. Human consideration
was not his cup of tea.

Q 6. While hatred against a member of the enemy race is justifiable, especially during
wartime, what makes a human being rise above narrow prejudices?
Ans. It is the consciousnesses of the demands of one’s calling that make a sensitive soul respond to
the call of his duty as a professional doctor to attend to the wounded human being regardless of his
being an enemy.
In the story ‘The Enemy’ Dr Sadao Hoki finds a prisoner of war washed ashore and in a dying state
thrown to his doorstep. As a patriot, it is his duty to hand him over to the police. If he does not want
to be entangled, the next best thing is to put him back to the sea.
However, the surgeon in him instinctively inspires him to operate upon the dying man and save him
from the jaws of death. First, he packs the wound with sea-moss to stanch the fearful bleeding.
Then he brings him home with the help of his wife. In spite of stiff opposition and open defiance of
the servants, he operates upon the man and harbours him till he is able to leave. He knows fully
well the risk of sheltering a white man—a prisoner of war—in his house. But his sentimentality for
the suffering and wounded person help him rise above narrow national prejudices and extend his
help and services even to an enemy.

Q7.What do you learn about Sadao’s father from the story ‘The Enemy’?
Ans. Sadao’s father was a visionary. He knew that the islands near the sea coast were the stepping
stones to the future for Japan. No one could limit their future as it depended on what they made it.
His son’s education was his chief concern. He sent his son to America at the age of twenty-two to
learn all that could be learned of surgery and medicine. He loved the Japanese race, customs and
manners.

Q 8. 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.
Q 9. 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 and had not been tended. It was bad
chance that the rock had struck the wound and reopened it.

Q 10.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.

Q.11. Why did the servants leave Dr Sadao’s house?

Answer:
Dr Sadao had given shelter to an enemy soldier. According to the servants, it was an act of treason.
They looked upon the Americans as their enemies since Japan and America were at war. When they
found that instead of handing over the enemy soldier to the police, Dr Sadao had decided to treat
him, they decided to leave his house.

Question 12.
Was Dr Sadao arrested on the charge of harbouring, an enemy?
Answer:
No, Dr Sadao not arrested on the charge of harbouring an enemy. He has already told the old
General about the enemy. Also the old General needs his medical help, therefore, he never wanted
that any harm may come to Dr Sadao.

Question 13
To choose between professional loyalty and patriotism was a dilemma for Dr Sadao. How did he
succeed in betraying neither?
Answer:
As a doctor, Sadao was taught that he should never let a person die if he could help. One evening,
he found a badly injured enemy soldier on the sea beach near his house. The man could die if not
given proper medical aid. Now, Dr Sadao decided to perform an opertation on the man though he
was an enemy soldier. He tended him well and took great care of him.

In this way Dr Sadao was able to maintain his professional loyalty. But Dr Sadao was a patriotic
from the core of his heart. He knew it was an act of treason to harbour an enemy soldier. Therefore,
he wrote a letter to the authorities about it and put it in his drawer. He even told the old General
everything about the enemy soldier. It is other thing that the General did not take any action against
the enemy soldier. But Dr Sadao was able to maintain a perfect balance between his professional
loyalty and patriotism.

Question.14.
How did Dr Sadao help then American POW to escape? What humanitarian values do you find in
his act?
Answer:
Dr Sadao saved the life of American POW with great effort. Naturally he did not want that any
harm should come to him and thus all his efforts be wasted. Therefore he decided to arrange for the
escape of that man. Dr Sadao decided to leave his boat on the seashore. He also decided to load the
boat with sufficient provisions. The American was dressed in Japanese clothes which Sadao had
given him, and at the last moment Sadao wrapped a black cloth about his blond head.

He was told to row the boat to a nearby island, where nobody lived because it remained submerged
in the sea most of the year. The doctor displays finer human values in this story. Though his
country is in a state of war with America, he does not forget his duty and obligations. As a doctor
he saves the life of the enemy even-at the sake of his life and reputation.