Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tshuchiya

   In the story, "Faithful Elephants" by Yukio Tshuchiya, A young boy (or girl, the story makes it unclear) notices something not many stop to notice anymore. "Not far from the cheerful square, there stands a tombstone". The child seems to take interest in this monument and all of its beauty the zoo keeper, who is polishing it, seems to Cherish. The zoo keeper tells the child a story of three elephants who, by command of the army, needed to be starved to death to keep the people of Tokyo safe. 
   This story speaks of little setting, yet the cherry blossom tree that hangs over the tomb stone is an important factor that is brought up twice throughout the story. I believe the cherry blossom tree symbolises the life of the elephants. These elephants needed to be killed, but who could kill these magestic creatures with the "loving eyes". Like the cherry blossoms, once the elephants were trained, or "blossomed", everyone enjoyed seeing the elephants perform their banzai trick and sharing their beauty.
   The army and the war i believe represents Winter, when the cherry blossoms die. The cherry blossoms begin to wilt in the winter. This is also what happened to the elephants. They stopped being fed. Although it was very hard for the zoo keepers, they weren't allowed to feed the elephants anything. In the text, it says "everyone was hoping that if the elephants could survive only one more day, the war might be over and the elephants would be saved". I think this also represents how they were wishing if the cherry blossoms could hold their beauty for a few more days, spring would come, bring all its hope to the people.
  But spring didn't come. The Elephants died from starvation. Like cherry blossoms, they floated gracefully down. But when blossoms fall, they aren't forgotten. They spread out new seeds and decompose to become new life. Tonky, Wanly and John were never forgotten. They lie peacefully under their cherry blossom tree.

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Maeve