The Enemy (Vistas) — Important Questions

Pearl S. Buck sets the story during WWII when Japan and the US were at war so that the central moral conflict — saving the life of an enemy combatant — has the maximum dramatic weight. Sadao a Japanese surgeon faces a choice: hand the wounded American POW over to military authorities or save his life. Wartime makes the choice morally extreme. The setting also allows Buck to examine themes of duty patriotism and humanity in their most intense form. The story would not have its power in peacetime.

Sadao is conflicted. As a Japanese citizen during wartime his patriotic duty is to hand the man over to the police. As a surgeon his ethical training is to save any life. The man is bleeding badly. Sadao's wife Hana is uncomfortable with the idea of harbouring an enemy. The servants will be terrified. Yet the doctor in Sadao cannot refuse a dying patient. He decides to operate first and let consequences follow — a decision that risks his career his family and possibly his life.

The three servants — old gardener cook and Yumi the maid — are deeply uncomfortable. They see the American as 'a white man in our house'. They refuse to help with the man. They consider quitting. They believe Sadao is exposing the household to grave danger from authorities and from the gods who may punish them for sheltering an enemy. They eventually leave when Sadao continues to nurse the American. Their reactions show how social pressure and patriotic conditioning operate even among those most loyal to a household.

Sadao's conscience as a doctor will not allow him to surrender a man whose life he has just saved. Beyond medical ethics he develops a quiet respect for the injured American who endures pain bravely. There is also a personal element — Sadao knows the man is a fellow human being even if labelled enemy. The General — to whom Sadao reports the case for guidance — is too sick to act and forgets to send assassins. Sadao seizes the opportunity and helps the American escape by boat at night. Mercy ultimately wins over patriotic calculation.

Sadao gives the recovering American clothes food a torch and his own boat. He instructs him to row to a small uninhabited island and signal with the torch at night when he needs more food. The American is to wait there until a Korean fishing boat picks him up. Sadao also gives him directions out of Japanese coastal waters. The escape is risky for both men. Sadao's choice to help shows his commitment to mercy over duty even at personal risk. The American is saved; Sadao's conscience is at peace.

The story's emotional and intellectual core is the conflict in Sadao between two duties. PROFESSIONAL DUTY — As a surgeon Sadao has taken an oath to save lives without distinction. His training in America has reinforced this universal humanism. The injured American is a patient in mortal need; refusing him would violate Sadao's deepest professional identity. PATRIOTIC DUTY — As a Japanese citizen during wartime Sadao is expected to hand the enemy over to the authorities. The American is a soldier of an opposing army a danger to Japan a target. Helping him is treason. THE CONFLICT — The two duties pull in opposite directions and Sadao must choose. Pearl S. Buck does not present this as easy. Sadao first considers killing the American by leaving him untreated. He considers calling the police. He genuinely struggles. His wife Hana is torn between fear and her own humanity. The servants reflect society's clear preference for patriotism over professional ethics. RESOLUTION — In the end Sadao's professional ethic wins reinforced by personal conscience. He operates on the American nurses him to recovery and helps him escape. He has not betrayed Japan in any meaningful sense; he has just refused to murder a man through inaction. The story argues that humanity supersedes nationality — that the doctor's oath is more universal than wartime allegiance. The conflict's resolution is Sadao's quiet personal victory over the propaganda of war.

Pearl S. Buck — an American who lived for years in China and observed Japanese aggression firsthand — uses 'The Enemy' to argue against the dehumanising language of war. (1) PERSONALISING THE ENEMY — The American is not a faceless soldier. He bleeds suffers thanks Sadao behaves with dignity. Once we see his face the word 'enemy' becomes hard to apply. (2) PROFESSIONAL ETHICS — Sadao's medical training transcends national borders. The Hippocratic Oath knows no nationality. Buck uses this to argue that there are duties higher than patriotic ones. (3) HUMANITY OF SADAO — Sadao is not a saint; he struggles. He nearly hands the American over multiple times. By making the protagonist morally complex Buck shows that humanity is not effortless heroism but a deliberate choice against pressure. (4) CONTRAST WITH SERVANTS — The servants represent unreflective patriotic conditioning. Their fear and refusal foreground Sadao's contrasting choice. (5) CONTRAST WITH THE GENERAL — The General who is supposed to send assassins is too consumed by his own illness to act. The state which demands patriotism is itself revealed as fragile and self-absorbed. (6) HANA'S TRANSFORMATION — Sadao's wife begins by sharing societal disgust but ends up nursing the American. Her transformation models the reader's possible journey. (7) UNIVERSAL TITLE — 'The Enemy' is sarcastic. By the end the reader sees that the American is not an enemy at all just a wounded man. The label was the lie not the man. Buck's message is timeless: war's vocabulary creates enemies that humanity often does not.

Sadao is a richly drawn character whose moral choices give the story its weight. (1) PROFESSIONAL — He is a brilliant surgeon trained in America with deep technical skill. Even in wartime he is the General's personal physician — too important to be sent to the front. His professional identity is the foundation of his being. (2) FAMILY MAN — He loves Hana his wife and respects her judgement. Their relationship is tender. He is also conscious of his elderly father's traditional values and the burden of household honour. (3) PATRIOTIC YET REFLECTIVE — He is loyal to Japan and culturally rooted. Yet his American education has given him a wider moral horizon. He cannot accept simple jingoism. (4) TORN — He genuinely struggles with the choice. He nearly hands the American over multiple times. He considers letting him die through inaction. The struggle makes his eventual decision more meaningful. (5) BRAVE — He defies pressure from his servants his wife (initially) the social atmosphere and the implicit threat of state punishment. To save the American he risks his career family and possibly his life. (6) PRACTICAL — He plans the escape carefully — clothes food torch boat directions to safe waters. His mercy is matched by competence. (7) HUMANE — He chooses humanity over jingoism mercy over violence universal ethics over local allegiance. By the end he has demonstrated that one can be a good Japanese and a good human at the same time. Sadao emerges as a quietly heroic figure whose heroism lies not in dramatic action but in the moral integrity of his choices.

Hana — Sadao's wife — is more than a supporting character; her transformation parallels the moral journey the story asks of every reader. (1) INITIAL DISGUST — When the American is brought home Hana is repelled both as a Japanese woman during wartime and as a household manager facing a dangerous guest. She wonders aloud whether they should hand him over. (2) CULTURAL CONDITIONING — Her reactions reflect the patriotic conditioning of wartime Japan. She has internalised the dehumanising vocabulary of 'enemy'. (3) PRACTICAL CONCERNS — She worries about the servants the household reputation and the safety of her children. Her concerns are not selfish but maternal and managerial. (4) GROWING SYMPATHY — As she helps Sadao with the operation and nursing she encounters the American as a suffering human being not a label. The encounter softens her. (5) ACTIVE PARTICIPATION — She gradually becomes Sadao's partner in concealment serving food administering care and managing the household around the secret. (6) MORAL TRANSFORMATION — By the end she has moved from disgust to compassion from labelling to seeing. Her transformation mirrors the journey Buck asks the reader to take — from patriotic abstraction to human encounter. (7) FEMININE COMPASSION — Buck uses Hana to anchor the story in domestic reality. The big moral choice plays out not in palaces or battlefields but in a home with servants meals and rooms — the spaces where wartime ideology meets actual people. Hana's transformation is therefore not just personal; it is exemplary. She models the reader's own possible movement from war's labels to the recognition of shared humanity.

When Sadao reports the American POW to the General the General agrees to send three personal assassins to dispose of him quietly to spare Sadao the public scandal. Yet the assassins never arrive. Sadao waits each night for them; nothing happens. The reason — the General is gravely ill. He needs Sadao's surgical skill to save his own life. He is so consumed by his own pain that he forgets to send the assassins. He even apologises to Sadao later confessing he forgot. WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THE STATE — (1) The state is fragile despite its outward power. Ministers and generals get sick forget make mistakes. The terrifying machinery of wartime governance is run by ordinary mortal humans. (2) Personal interest trumps patriotic duty even at the highest level. The General prioritised his own survival over the elimination of an enemy combatant. (3) The arbitrary forgetting allows mercy to operate. Sadao did not need to defy the General; the General forgot. The state's failure to enforce its own demands creates the space for humanity to flourish. (4) Buck quietly mocks the seriousness with which states demand absolute loyalty when they themselves are disorganised and self-interested. (5) The episode also creates suspense — Sadao does not know assassins are not coming and lives in fear for nights on end. The waiting itself is a moral test. Pearl S. Buck uses this subtle plot device to make a profound point: states often demand more from citizens than they themselves are capable of organising.