This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

Reflecting on the changing character of her city, Charlie writes “But this is how evil grows, no? When good people are too tired” (76). Evil arises when good people do nothing to stop it, or when people are too tired to resist. This concept is represented throughout the story with the theme of the frog in the pot, expressed in two variations: the boiling frog and the leaping frog. The notion comes from an experiment that Alex was forced to conduct in his science class on Bainbridge Island, in which students were to catch a frog, then place it in a pot over a flame. Alex writes, “Did you know that if you drop a frog into boiling water, it will instantly leap out? But if you put it into room-temperature water, and then slowly heat the water, the frog will stupidly remain in there until it overheats and dies” (67). Frank immediately makes the connection between the frog and the situation of the Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, and although his anger is justified, it is an oversimplification of the balance of power at work in their situation. The issei are mostly immigrants, though some are US citizens. They have relatively little political power to intervene when the whole country has turned against them.