Essay Questions

What ironic point is being made in the scene where the song “Rule Britannia” is being played?

The opening section of the play—Act One, Scene One—effectively sets the stage for what is to become by situating the state of British attitudes and opinions toward the Japanese. A British officer’s casual racism puts the danger of patriotic underestimation of the one’s enemies perfectly within context when he disparagingly refers to the Japanese as “slanty eyes” not just for the sake of racially belittling them, but also to justify a strategic attitude which will soon enough prove profoundly oblivious and recklessly short-sighted: “If they can’t see properly, how can they shoot?” “Rule Brittania” is patriotic anthem featuring typically simplistic lyrics about ruling the waves, being dreaded and envied by everyone else in the world and, most importantly, asserting several times that “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.” As the song winds down the repetition of this closing phrase, the audience sees a photographic image bearing the slogan, “Don’t listen to Rumour.” Storing their faith in the rumors being spread by the British government and military that the Japanese hardly presented anything like a real threat to the greatest military power on the planet is, of course, precisely what led to the suffering of so many.

What makes “Lipstick Larry” such an ideal nickname for that particular character?

“Lipstick Larry” is a nickname that immediately creates a connotative association of humor that may naturally lead one to expect the character so named is perhaps the drama’s comic relief or maybe just simply an object of ridicule. It is only upon learning the dark origin of the nickname—that he is a vicious guard who will waste little time punching any woman he spots wearing lipstick smack in the face—that the complexity of this character begins to take shape. He actually does become an object of humorous ridicule during the scene recalling the revenge of the pin place inside his loincloth, but even this moment of lightness rapidly turns quite dark. Lipstick Larry comes to personify and embody the complete and total lack of grounding of reality within an environment like a prisoner of war camp. His nickname is silly but not for silly reasons. The act of revenge which brings the woman will ultimately be celebrated as the finest moment of the war, but it is also an act which stimulates violence against them returned in kind. Sheila dares to risk going to Larry for help because he always smiled at her so it is that very act of what is taken as kindness that leads to the worst moments of the war for her. Lipstick Larry is therefore a fitting name for the personification of a world that has become overnight impossible to interpret.

How does the play suggest that there is a fundamental difference between how British and Japanese men view women in their different cultures and society?

The British characters are portrayed almost as stereotypes of the class-conscious, privileged stewards of the world order whom “inferior” races just naturally respect and fear. This leads the kind of oblivion to the realities of the fight they are facing, as previously indicated, but it also engenders another consequential effect: the expectation that the natural supremacy of white women would be enough to protect them from the more primal impulses of Japanese masculinity. British sailors rashly urge the women to stand up on the assumption that their Japanese counterparts will view them merely as weak and inferior. Once in the prison camp, this quaint side to the patriarchy of the British is juxtaposed with a far different form of patriarchy among the Japanese men who view women every bit as weak and inferior to men. Instead of stimulating an urge toward misogynistic protection, however, the Japanese version has evolved to stimulate a desire to exploit that weakness for the purpose of sexual dominance and oppressive control.