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Q.After seeing off the enemy soldier, Dr. Sadao must have felt relieved. He was able to uphold the oath that he had taken as a doctor. Dr. Sadao made an entry into his daily diary explaining the dilemma faced by him and how he resolved it. Imagine yourself to be Dr. Sadao and express his thoughts. (You may begin like this: I was able to uphold the oath that I had taken as a doctor….)

CBSECBSE Class XII Board 2023Subjective· 5mImportance★★★★★
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As Dr. Sadao Hoki of "The Enemy" (Pearl S. Buck), write a first-person diary entry: the dilemma — a Japanese patriot bound by a surgeon's oath finds a wounded American prisoner of war on his beach; the resolution — he operates, shelters the man despite the servants' desertion and the General's forgotten assassins, and finally sends him to safety by boat, true to his oath.

The dilemma behind the entry

During the war, harbouring the enemy is treason; handing a dying man to the police is a death sentence. Dr. Sadao — a famous surgeon trained in America — resolves the conflict in stages: he operates and removes the bullet, informs the General (who promises his private assassins will remove the man, then forgets), and at last takes the decision into his own hands: he gives the sailor his boat, food, bottled water and his flashlight, and sends him to the little island to board a passing Korean fishing boat. No signal at sunset means the man has got safely away. The diary must trace exactly this arc — conflict, action, resolution, reflection.

Model diary entry

Tuesday, 10.30 p.m.

I was able to uphold the oath that I had taken as a doctor, and tonight, at last, I can sleep.

When the sea flung that wounded American onto our beach, every duty I owe Japan spoke plainly: he is a prisoner of war; hand him over. But he was also a dying man, bleeding, a bullet still in him, and these hands of mine were trained only to heal. Hana and I carried him in. She washed him herself when Yumi refused, and held the ether cone while I took the bullet out. One by one the servants left our house. I do not blame them; their loyalty is simpler than mine.

I confessed everything to the General. He promised that his private assassins would remove the man quietly, and for three nights I lay listening for their footsteps in the guest room. No one ever came. The old man, wrapped up in his own illness — and in his need of my scalpel — had simply forgotten. So the choice returned to me, whole and undivided. …

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