Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Hatsuyo Nakamura, Toshiko Sasaki, Dr. Masakazu Fujii, and Dr. Terufumi Sasaki

Although they are certainly not just characters (they were real live people), the six primary subjects of Hersey's account all could be identified as the "protagonist" of the story. Their memories of the event and their struggles afterwards provide Hersey with a lens through which he (and the reader) can dig into the human ramifications of "total war" in the atomic age.