“War is terrible, brutal, and unfair and when it ends, apologies must be given, reparations made, and survivors’ experiences remembered.”- Mary Lynn Bracht
Though White Chrysanthemum has some other significance in other countries in Japan it symbolises mourning and grief. and the novel perfectly goes with this symbol of heartbreak. White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht is the story of Hana, how from a Haenyeo she changed into a ‘white chrysanthemum’. The story is set against the backdrop of the second world war when Korean women were forced into prostitution or sex slavery by Japanese soldiers. Hana a girl from Jeju Island was dragged far beyond her sea to Manchuria as a sex slave. Brutality, inhumanity and betrayal benumbs her life but her desire to reunite with her family, her sister never dies. Emi’s (Hana’s sister) search for her elder sister goes on at the same time, crafting the novel’s plot with two protagonists searching for each other. Therefore, the novel follows two parallel timelines: one of Hana from 1940 and the other of her sister Emi from 2011.
“The ocean swells beneath her, calling her name, Hana.”
I read only Hana’s life as after reading it I don’t feel like detangling from her life interrupting her tragic journey by someone else even close to her blood. And throughout the novel the one thing I wish for is Hana’s coming back to her family to her sister for whom she didn’t pay a second thought to give up her own life. Even at the face of the last bullet that tickles blood from her face I desperately wished her to be alive and come back to her sister Emi.
The story starts beautifully like a fairy tale, two loving sisters and their bonding with the family and the sea.” I am a haenyeo. Like my mother, and her mother before her, like my sister will be and one day, her daughters too was never anything but a woman of the sea.”
But the sea where Hana used to swim hours after hours nonchalantly couldn’t keep her safe. One day Hana was captured by Japanese soldier General Morimoto. More precisely she didn’t try to save herself to protect her younger sister Emi and her family. She was then 16 but mature and determined enough to keep her promise to protect her sister from any danger. The life she welcomed was horrible even beyond her nightmare.
Hana had to die, a brave death. She could not reunited with her sister. But her sister found her as a statue. Should I take it as a solace? No, I cannot. I cannot accept Hana meeting her sister as a statue. It breaks my heart.
“The Statue sits beside her as though in forgiveness. Hana was always there, waiting for Emi to find her.”
The story is raw with brutal emotion. I salute the excellent penmanship of Mary Lynn Bracht. From the beginning to the end, she has dominated her plot and characters with indomitable poignancy, laced with a sense of melancholy and desperation that dig deep into readers’ hearts. I appreciate her unwavering commitment to truth and inhumanity as well as the eternal theme of love and familial bond. White Chrysanthemum is the odyssey of Hana’s life, a life torn and wrecked with inhumanity, brutality, hope and hopelessness.
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