About 17,000 Americans each year feel that the name they were given does not match their identity. The name we give to a person is what they are, it is a way for the world to recognize them. At the start of World War II, the United States government took a series of drastic measures targeting Japanese Americans in the United States. All Japanese Americans, no matter who they were, adults, women, or children, were suspected of being spies. More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. This essay aims to study the comparison of named and anonymous characters in When the Emperor Was Divine, through the analysis of their loss of identity. This analysis will also vividly show the suffering of Japanese Americans during this era. At the beginning, the four main characters are all anonymous but with the name --- the father, the son, the daughter and the mother. Generally speaking, if authors want their writings to be easily understood, they always choose to give characters names, which can also avoid confusion. But in this novel, the author must want to express a special meaning through the anonymous main characters. On the one hand, it is believed that the experiences of this unnamed Japanese-American family are not a unique example but the epitome of what all Japanese Americans experienced during this era. Nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were taken from their homes in the spring and early summer of 1942 and incarcerated in concentration camps by the United States government. (Roger Daniels, 3) On the other hand, and more significantly, the anonymous nature of the characters also indicates the loss of their identity. Because they are Japanese-American, they are different from real native Americans in their habits, with...... middle of paper ......e, so they can be any Japanese at that time and their encounters are just a part of what all Japanese experienced during World War II. The second is that having a name is a basic human right and being deprived of the right to have a name is the most obvious symbol of the loss of one's identity. The author intends to define the main unnamed characters to attract readers' attention and describe the difficulties of Japanese Americans in the United States during that era. This anonymous application expresses that the war deeply hurts Japanese Americans and also evokes readers' sympathy for the Japanese. Works Cited Otsuka, Julie. When the emperor was divine. (New York: Anchor Books, 2002) Daniels, Roger. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II. (New York: HILL and WANG, 1993)Seeman, MV. Name and identity. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7190867