The Enemy Class 12 is Chapter 4 of the NCERT English Vistas textbook — a complete short story that runs 23 printed pages, from the “Before you Read” note that opens it to the “Reading with Insight” questions on its final page.
The official NCERT PDF of the chapter is here for direct download, and below it you will find a scene-by-scene map of the story, its themes, and help with every discussion question. This page is maintained for the current academic session.
For the text exactly as NCERT publishes it — including the chapter’s two footnotes on the haori and the tokonoma — open the NCERT Class 12 English Vistas Chapter 4 The Enemy PDF, the official chapter file on ncert.nic.in that matches the printed Vistas textbook page for page.
| What the chapter holds | Count | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Printed pages | 23 | |
| Figures with NCERT captions | 1 | |
| Official NCERT PDF | Download the chapter PDF | the chapter exactly as NCERT publishes it |
The Enemy Chapter at a Glance
Before you start reading, the table below shows exactly what the chapter file contains — its length, its named sections, its illustrations and its question set — taken from the NCERT text itself.
One thing the numbers cannot show is the chapter’s shape: it is a single continuous narrative with no numbered sub-sections, and it ends not with exercises but with discussion questions under the heading “Reading with Insight.”
What This Chapter Covers: The Story in Scenes
The chapter opens with a “Before you Read” note that poses the moral question the whole story answers by action: an American prisoner of war lies dying on a Japanese doctor’s doorstep — does he save the man as a doctor, or hand him over as a patriot?
What follows is one continuous narrative spanning Vistas pages 25 to 46, and the chapter closes with the “Reading with Insight” question set. The beats below map the story so you can find any moment quickly.
- The setting and the arrival: Dr Sadao Hoki’s low stone house stands on a lonely Japanese coast above a narrow beach of bent pines. Sadao was sent to America at twenty-two to learn surgery, and his dead father’s ambition — “the stepping stones to the future for Japan” — still frames his life. One foggy evening, a man is flung ashore by a breaker and collapses on the beach.
- The dilemma: the man is a white American, unconscious, with a reopened gun wound in his lower back. Sadao names three options aloud — put him back in the sea, hand him to the police, or shelter him — and the battered cap’s faint lettering, “U.S. Navy,” identifies him as an escaped prisoner of war.
- The decision to shelter him: Hana resolves the deadlock: they must carry him into the house. Both agree to tell the servants the man will be given to the police, and they carry him to the empty bedroom of Sadao’s dead father.
- The servants’ refusal: the old gardener warns that the gun and the sea will take revenge if the master heals what they did. Yumi flatly refuses to wash the man, so Hana, angry and afraid, washes him herself.
- The operation: Sadao operates with his emergency kit spread on the tokonoma alcove’s floor, Hana gives the anesthetic, and he removes the bullet from near the kidney. The man mutters English words, and Sadao murmurs “my friend” to him as he does to every patient, forgetting that this one is his enemy.
- Recovery and its cost: the prisoner gives his name as Tom; Sadao refuses to hear more. The three servants leave together, and Hana asks why she and Sadao seem different from other Japanese. Sadao types a report to the Chief of Police but leaves it unfinished in a secret drawer.
- The General: Sadao is summoned to the palace, where the old General — his patient — offers to send two private assassins to kill the prisoner quietly. Three nights pass, and the assassins never come; Sadao lies awake listening for footsteps.
- The escape and the end: Sadao rows a boat to the shore with food, bottled water, quilts and Japanese clothing, and sends Tom to a nearby island with a flashlight and coded signals. Weeks later the General admits he forgot the promise; the story ends with Sadao on the veranda watching the sea, wondering why he could not kill the man.
Two words in the story carry the book’s own footnotes: haori, the loose outer garment Hana wears over her kimono, and tokonoma, the alcove where Sadao lays out his instruments for the operation.
Themes and Key Concepts in The Enemy
This section moves from what happens to what the story is about — the conflicts the “Reading with Insight” questions actually test. Each theme below is anchored to a moment in the chapter you can point to.
- Professional duty against national loyalty: Sadao’s defence of himself is the chapter’s clearest statement — he was trained not to let a man die — while the servants accuse him of forgetting his country first. The two loyalties pull in opposite directions through the whole story.
- The irony of the word “enemy”: Sadao calls the American his enemy, saves his life, and at the end still finds his face repulsive. The title names a relation the story refuses to resolve: the man remains an enemy even after he has been saved.
- Prejudice on both sides: Sadao remembers Americans who despised him as a Japanese — the difficulty of finding lodgings, the landlady he found repulsive — and he is equally contemptuous of the white faces he recalls. The story never pretends one side is innocent.
- The state’s self-absorption: it is not a change of heart in the General that saves Sadao but the General’s complete self-absorption: he forgets the assassins because he thought of nothing but himself. Sadao realises the General is in his power, and that he himself is therefore safe.
- The servants as the voice of wartime society: the gardener warns of supernatural revenge, the cook scorns Sadao’s pride in saving any life, and Yumi fears the fate of the children if their father is condemned as a traitor. Each objection differs in kind, and together they voice the society Sadao has placed himself against.
| Character | Who they are | Role in the moral conflict |
|---|---|---|
| Sadao | Japanese surgeon trained in America; the old General’s doctor | Makes every key decision: carries the man in, operates, leaves the police report unfinished, arranges the escape. |
| Hana | His wife; met as a student in America | Helps carry the man in, washes him, gives the anesthetic, and asks why she and Sadao are different from other Japanese. |
| Tom | The escaped American prisoner of war | His helplessness keeps the dilemma alive; his name and the scars on his neck remain partly unexplained. |
| The General | Sadao’s patient, an ailing wartime leader | Offers private assassins, then forgets them — his self-absorption is what keeps Sadao safe. |
| Yumi | The children’s nurse | Refuses to wash a white man and leaves fearing for the children; returns out of love for the baby. |
| Old gardener and cook | Lifetime servants of the Hoki household | Voice the community’s objections: supernatural revenge and contempt for saving any life. |
Telling details the chapter plants but never explains
The story keeps several details before the reader without ever interpreting them: the sea moss Sadao packs into the wound to stanch the bleeding, the flowered silk quilt spoiled by the wounded man’s blood, the black cloth bound over Tom’s blond hair for the escape, the flashlight signals arranged for the horizon, and the deep red scars under Tom’s ear, which Hana notices during the operation and Sadao never asks about.
The chapter plants these details and leaves you to weigh them — a lesson in reading that the discussion questions depend on.
The Chapter’s Opening Illustration
The chapter opens with a single piece of artwork, captioned “It is the time of the World War.” — the same line that opens the “Before you Read” note.
The illustration drops the reader straight into the wartime frame before a single line of story appears. Everything that follows — the washed-up sailor, the servants’ fear, the General’s assassins — is a choice made under a state at war, and that frame is what makes the chapter’s central question urgent.
Key Terms and Allusions in The Enemy
This is the vocabulary the story assumes. The two Japanese terms below are the only words NCERT itself footnotes in the chapter; the rest you will meet in the opening pages.
- haori — a loose outer garment worn over the kimono; Hana wears a dark-blue woollen one. (The book’s footnote.)
- tokonoma — a niche or alcove in a Japanese home for displaying a flower arrangement, kakemono or other piece of art; Sadao spreads his instruments on its floor.
- prisoner of war — Tom is an escaped American sailor; the story is explicit that turning him over would certainly mean his death.
- “the stepping stones to the future for Japan” — Sadao’s father’s phrase for the islands beyond their coast: the ambition he passes to his son.
- “U.S. Navy” — the faint lettering on the battered cap that forces Sadao and Hana to name the man their enemy.
One piece of classroom vocabulary the chapter never uses: teachers discuss this story in terms of irony, moral dilemma and foil.
The dilemma is named in the “Before you Read” note, the irony hangs on the title “The Enemy,” and the servants act as a foil to Sadao’s choice — a contrast that defines his decision by what they refuse to accept.
Reading with Insight: The Chapter’s Discussion Questions, Mapped
The final page of the chapter carries “Reading with Insight” — a set of eight discussion questions with no model answers. The mark of a good answer is evidence from the story, not a verdict, so the table below shows what each question is really asking and where the evidence lives.
| No. | What it asks | What it tests | Evidence to build on |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hard choices between the private self and the loyal citizen, with this story as the case | Balanced debate, both sides weighed | The beach scene’s three options — sea, police, house — and the servants’ departure when the house is chosen. |
| 2 | Why Hana, not just the doctor, felt compelled to help the enemy | Close character reading | She washes the man when Yumi refuses, feeds and comforts him without liking him, and asks why she and Sadao are different from other Japanese. |
| 3 | Why the soldier is so reluctant to leave a house he knows is unsafe | Close character reading; empathy | His animal terror, his question about being handed over, and his flat “Okay” when the escape is forced on him. |
| 4 | What explains the General — humanity, disloyalty, neglect of duty, or self-absorption | Choosing among stated options | His own confession that he thought of nothing but himself and forgot the promise to Sadao. |
| 5 | What raises a person above narrow prejudice in wartime | Extrapolation to human values | Sadao saves the man while insisting he cares nothing for him; his repulsion survives the surgery. |
| 6 | Whether the doctor’s final solution was the best possible one | Open debate with consequences weighed | Measure the escape against the family’s risk and the deception of the state. |
| 7 | Similarities with “Birth” by A. J. Cronin, read in Snapshots | Comparison across texts | Both centre on a doctor whose effort saves a life against high odds; only add details of “Birth” you remember from your own reading. |
| 8 | A film or novel with a similar theme | Personal response tied to theme | The theme to match is private morality against group or state loyalty. |
Common Mistakes Students Make in The Enemy
This story punishes assumptions. Most lost marks come from reading a motive the text explicitly denies, so the table below pairs each wrong reading with the correction the story itself provides.
| The wrong reading | What the text actually says | How to check your answer |
|---|---|---|
| “The General acted out of patriotism.” | He confesses pure self-absorption: pain made him think of nothing but himself, and he forgot his promise to Sadao. | Quote his own confession; notice he worries Sadao will read it as disloyalty. |
| “Sadao saved the soldier because they became friends.” | Sadao insists he cares nothing for the man, refuses even to learn his name, and still finds his face repulsive at the end. | Count Sadao’s statements of indifference; the friendship reading has no support in the text. |
| “Hana was romantically drawn to the prisoner.” | The story says she felt no sentimental liking and remained afraid of him as an enemy. | Look at her distant bow when Tom offers his name. |
| “The story ends with humanity triumphing over prejudice.” | The ending is deliberately unresolved: Sadao asks why he could not kill the man, and the white face still strikes him as repulsive. | Notice the final line is a question, not a resolution. |
| “The servants are simply cruel or superstitious.” | Each gives a different reasoned objection: the gardener’s fear of revenge, the cook’s contempt for saving any life, Yumi’s fear for the children. | State each servant’s reason separately instead of lumping them together. |
| “The scars on Tom’s neck prove he was tortured.” | The story raises the scars and refuses to explain them; Sadao sees them, does not ask, and that silence is the point. | Resist speculation; a strong answer names the ambiguity instead of resolving it. |
Exam Notes: Turning the Reading with Insight Questions into Strong Answers
None of the eight questions has a single right answer, but every one rewards an answer anchored in the story’s own words. The set makes four distinct demands, and each one needs a different move.
- Reasoned debate — questions 1, 4 and 6: weigh both sides before concluding; the General question is the only one the story itself resolves.
- Close character reading — questions 2 and 3: answer from what Hana and Tom do and say, not from what you suppose they feel.
- Extrapolation to human values — questions 5 and 7: broaden from the story to a general statement about prejudice, then bring the evidence back.
- Personal response — question 8: an example from a film or novel is judged by its relevance to the theme, not by how much you describe it.
A strong answer opens with a clear position, supports it with one named scene, brings in a short line of evidence, acknowledges the opposite side, and closes with the story’s own ambiguity where it exists.
The “Before you Read” note contains the chapter’s central question, so it works as a ready-made opening hook for almost any answer.
One practical note: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus.
Rapid Review: The Moral Arc of The Enemy in Five Decisions
This is the fastest honest retelling of the whole chapter — the story compressed into the five choices Sadao makes, ready to retell in under two minutes. The chapter has no printed summary; its only end matter is “Reading with Insight,” so this arc is the skeleton to hold in your head.
| Decision | What the choice reveals |
|---|---|
| Carrying the wounded man into the house | He chooses life over the state’s rules before he even knows the man is an enemy. |
| Operating on the enemy soldier | The surgeon’s training governs him; he works while wondering why he is doing it. |
| Leaving the police report unfinished in a secret drawer | He postpones the official choice instead of making it. |
| Accepting the General’s plan for private assassins, telling Hana nothing | He lets the state’s machinery resolve the dilemma — and the machinery forgets him. |
| Arranging the escape by boat | He resolves it himself, sending the problem away rather than killing it. |
The story leaves one question unanswered, and it is the point of the chapter: standing on the veranda after the escape, Sadao wonders why he could not kill the man. The arc ends where it began, with a man who cannot classify the life he saved.
Related Resources for The Enemy Class 12
This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.
The pages below lead onward from this chapter: the rest of the Vistas book, the Class 12 English notes on this site, and the official NCERT source for every chapter file.
- NCERT Class 12 books hub — every subject in the Class 12 set.
- NCERT Class 12 English book page — the full Vistas reader, every chapter linked.
- The previous chapter and the next chapter of Vistas on this site.
- Class 12 English notes and the Class 12 notes hub.
- Notes for Journey to the End of the Earth and Indigo, the chapters around this one on the site.
All Vistas chapters, including this one, are published as free official PDFs on the NCERT portal.
Reference: NCERT Class 12 English textbook (Vistas), Chapter 4, official edition on ncert.nic.in.
Sources and Data Verification
The figures, story references and question guidance on this page describe Chapter 4, “The Enemy,” in the official NCERT edition of the Class 12 English textbook Vistas.
This page covers that single chapter and its “Reading with Insight” question set — it does not cover the full CBSE English syllabus.
The listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT information available to us.
NCERT settles textbooks, editions and official PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations — for a textbook edition, consult NCERT, not CBSE.
FAQ: The Enemy Class 12 Questions Answered
Why does Dr Sadao save the American soldier even though he is his enemy?
Sadao saves the man because his surgical training will not let him stand aside while someone dies — he tells the servants as much: he was trained not to let a man die when he can help it.
He insists throughout that he feels nothing for the American personally, so the story keeps the act a professional one, not a friendship or a conversion.
Why did the General forget to send his assassins to kill the prisoner?
Because he thought of nothing but himself. The General was in pain, absorbed in his own illness and his need for Sadao, and the promise simply slipped his mind; afterwards he worries that Sadao will mistake it for disloyalty. It is this self-absorption, not a change of heart, that leaves the prisoner alive and Sadao safe.
Why does the young American soldier hesitate to leave the doctor’s house?
Because he is still weak and terrified, and the alternative is bleak. The story shows his animal fear every time Sadao raises his return to strength; when the escape is forced on him he answers with a flat “Okay.” The island means raw fish, no fire, and waiting for a Korean fishing boat that may not come.
Why do the servants leave Dr Sadao’s house in the middle of the story?
Each servant leaves for a different stated reason. The old gardener warns that the gun and the sea will take revenge if the wound is healed; the cook scorns Sadao’s pride in saving any life; Yumi fears the children’s fate if their father is condemned as a traitor.
They depart together once it is clear the man will not be handed over, and Yumi later returns because the baby misses her.
How is The Enemy similar to Birth by A. J. Cronin?
The chapter’s question itself gives the comparison: both stories centre on a doctor whose persistent effort saves a life against high odds.
Because “Birth” is not printed in this book, build the answer on what The Enemy shows — Sadao operating on a stranger at real risk to his own family — and bring in details of Cronin’s story only from your own memory of it.
Explore Class 12 English Books
- Previous: Journey to the end of the Earth
- Next: Indigo
Class 12 English on LearnCBSE:
Related chapters:
- Prose
- Short stories
- The Third Level