Character Sketch of Dr Sadao (The Enemy by Pearl S. Buck)

Dr. Sadao Hoki is the protagonist of the story and Hana’s husband. A skilled surgeon educated in America, Sadao is wholly responsible for saving the life of Tom, an American prisoner of war who washes up on the beach alongside Sadao and Hana’s isolated home on the Japanese coast. Sadao is an emotionally complex character who struggles to come to terms with his inexplicable impulse to save the life of an American, who is supposedly his enemy, and his staunch Japanese patriotism (which increasingly reads as outright nationalism and racial prejudice). Sadao’s arc is anti-epiphanic, ending with his deeply prejudiced thoughts about all the Americans he’s known throughout his lifetime. However, the story suggests that the reason he helped the prisoner of war—putting his and his household’s safety on the line in doing so—is because of the latent human impulse to be good and kind. Alongside his nationalism, Sadao is also a proponent of traditional Japanese gender roles, requiring his wife to be a meek, subservient housewife who tends to the servants and follows Sadao’s orders unflinchingly.

Even though the couple met at college in America, Hana generally conforms to this role gladly and seems to value Japanese customs. Despite upholding strict gender roles—with Sadao often coming across as cold and domineering—the couple appears to genuinely and tenderly love one another, even if those feelings are largely unspoken. Many of the decisions Sadao makes about how to deal with Tom stem from Sadao wanting to alleviate his wife’s severe anxiety at housing the prisoner.