LIARS

Lying is a large theme throughout the book and plays an important role for all the characters regardless of their race or creed. Right from the start, there is noticeable lying and seems as if the majority of the lying is used as protection, whether it is to protect the liar or whether it is to protect the ones being lied to.

At this time in history, you have all these Japanese families being sent of to internment camps and this displacement is being watched, from the outside, by the non-Asian community. A perfect example of a regular white man who you can suppose is powerless to the government, but still shows no sign of eagerness to help is Joe Lundy. This man has been working in his hardware store for what seems like his entire life post high school and one could infer that he gets the same customers over and over. So assuming that he has seen this woman come into his store before and that they are casual acquaintances one would think that maybe he or other members of the community would strike against the displacement of people who they know are true Americans. But we see in this book that no one has that sort of courage; Joe just tries to take this blame off his shoulders by offering to pay when she gets back, and who actually knows when this will be, and secondly with a few pieces of candy. I’m sure that this will make everything just fine for this family who is being forced to pick up and move to desert internment camp for Japanese-Americans. This sort of lie fits in with the type of people who are trying to protect themselves because they can’t deal with the shame.

The second type of liar in this book is the one who lies to protect another, in this case usually a family member or friend. The mother is forced to kill White Dog so it is not suffering alone when the family has to leave their home, but does not tell the boy that she has actually buried his dog in the back yard. She is just trying to protect her son from everything bad that is coming in the near future, she knows that there is going to be a point where he will have to face the truth but until that time comes she has the power to sugarcoat his life. These are just two examples of the types of lies found in this book, and since it is such a prevalent theme, I am sure that more will arise before the story’s end.