Reading Response To “Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People and War”

By Yukio Tsuchiya

“ Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People and War’’ by, Yukio Tsuchiya is a story filled with death, sorrow, and many emotions.  In the story the three most important deaths, are the elephants’.  The elephants’ deaths represent the consequences of war.  John, the first elephant to get killed, dies almost on his own, yet his death still stands out to me.  Tonky and Wanly die together.  These two deaths stir many emotions not only from the zoo keepers that are forced to kill them, but from all of the zoo keepers that work in the zoo.

John is the first of the three elephants to die.  In my opinion John is the strongest of the three elephants because the zoo keepers try to kill him two other times without success, before they’re forced to starve him.  This is what the story says when it talks about the first time they try to kill John, “ John loved potatoes, so the elephant keepers mixed poisoned potatoes with the good ones when it was time to feed him.  John,  however, was a very clever elephant.  He ate the good potatoes...”.  This shows me that not only is John clever, but he’s a warrior too, being able to realize he’s trying to be killed and not give in.  They end up having to starve John.  John being the warrior that he is, lasted seventeen days before starving to death.

That leaves Tonky and Wanly to be killed.  Tonky and Wanly die as one.  When the zoo keepers describe them, they describe Tonky and Wanly together as if they’re the same elephant.   I think their attachment makes the zoo keepers decide they want to starve both of them at the same time.  Unlike John though, their deaths fill the zoo keepers with sorrow and anger.  It says that when their elephant trainer first found out that Tonky and Wanly died, “ He buried his head in his arms and cried...”.  The zoo and the elephant keeper loved these two elephants, and showed so much emotion when they both died.  At first they were sad, and then they became frustrated with the war because it forced them to kill the elephants.

The elephants’ deaths during the war hurt and affected the zoo and the zoo keepers deeply.  The importance of the elephants’ death shows because after the war the zoo gave the three elephants - John, Tonky, and Wanly - a monument in the zoo.  The zoo keepers didn’t get as emotional for John as they did for Tonky and Wanly.  John’s death was just as important as the two other elephants because the monument was dedicated to all of them.  The three elephants will always have a place in the zoo.