Teacher:
Ms. Oishi Hisako, aka Koishi-sensei or Miss Pebble

Marries a young man who is a sailor who plies the lovely waters of the Inland Sea. But her husband eventually must go to war, too, and is killed. They have 3 children,

--the eldest is Daikichi; when the war is over, Ms. Oishi is relieved and her son comments that she is not like other mothers. She says they feel the same way as her, but just won't admit it.

Daikichi tells his mother that he feels badly that he didn't die in the war but she retorts "That is good!"

"Aren't you going to cry because we lost?" he asks.

"I cried for the dead," she responds.

She had opened up this whole discourse on the postwar by comenting,

"Now children can be children again."

--the youngest daughter, Yatsu, is killed when she falls from persimmon tree she climbed because she was desperately hungry in the early postwar years;

Students:

Males:
1. Okada Isokichi—"Sonki"—goes to war—survives but is blind
2. Takeshita Takeichi—dies in war--At his grave marker, Sensei grieves that he thought being a soldier would be better than being a shopkeeper or a farmer, but now here he lies. . .
3. Tokuda Kichiji—"Kichin"—goes to war—returns; a fisherman
4. Morioka Tadashi—"Tanko"—dies in war
5. Aizawa Nita—"Nikuta"—dies in war

Females:

6. Kawamoto Matsue—"Mattchan"—mother dies, sent to noodle shop; attends reunion
7. Nishiguchi Misako---"Miisan"—comes to reunion; has daughter in Oishi’s class
8. Kagawa Masuno—"Machan"—singer; hosts reunion
9. Kinoshita Fujiko—of the former village headman's family which becomes impoverished and has to flee in the middle of the night
10. Yamanishi Sanae, graduates Normal School, becomes a teacher, attends reunion
11. Katagiri Kotoe—develops TB, dies
12. Kabe Kotsuru –midwife, attends reunion

Location:
Shodoshima Island—see web link on syllabus under Twenty-four Eyes (you can click for English version of page). It is the second largest Island on the Inland Sea after Awajishima, and also the setting for MacArthur’s Children.