Perspective

Through the novel, Chang uses a variety of perspectives to tell the story of the massacre at Nanking. Her opinions are clearly injected throughout the book, but are backed through the use of first-hand narrative of those within the city at the time of the invasion. Her background as both a Chinese descendant as well as the child of parents who survived the horrors of World War II in China give Chang a clear bias in her beliefs. However, her intensive research into the topic of Nanking allows her to use this bias to explain the reasoning of the Japanese, and to relate vital Japanese identity characteristics with the events at Nanking. In addition, her use of firsthand documents, historical statements, and governmental papers provide a very solid bases for her discussions of the massacre, as well as give the readers a firsthand, sometime horrifyingly detailed account of...