The short story "Faithful Elephants," by Yukio Tsuchiya teaches readers that life isn't always fair. In the story, the zookeepers had to kill the animals in the zoo, bombs were being dropped on the zoo, and and the three elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly were starved because the trainers could find no other way to kill them, which they had to do. All of these events in the story were extremely unfair to both the people and the animals.

In the story, the zookeepers at Ueno Zoo had to kill all of the potentially "dangerous" animals in the zoo. They were taking precaution in case a bomb was dropped on the zoo and the animals escaped, which could be very dangerous to both the animals and the people nearby. "What would happen if bombs hit the zoo? If the cages were broken and dangerous animals escaped to run wild through the city, it would be terrible! Therefore, by command of the army, all of the lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and big snakes were poisoned to death." It wasn't the animals' faults that there was the possibility of bombs being dropped on the zoo, and yet they were being killed because of it. This was very unfair to the animals. This was also very unfair to the trainers. "All this while, the elephants' trainer loved them as if they were his own children. He could only pace in front of the cage and moan, 'You poor, poor, pitiful elephants!'" The trainers loved these animals, and now they had to kill them JUST IN CASE a bomb was dropped on the zoo.

In the story, the three elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly had to be killed along with the rest of the "dangerous" animals. But, since they were too smart to be poisoned and their skin was too tough to be given a syringe that would kill them quickly, they had to be starved to death. "The keepers reluctantly decided to starve him to death. Poor John died seventeen days later." It wasn't the elephants' faults that there was no other way for them to be killed, and yet they had to die an extremely slow an painful death because of it.

In "Faithful Elephants," we are taught that life can be very unfair. The text had lots of evidence for this moral: the zookeepers had to kill their beloved animals, the elephants were starved to death, and there were bombs being dropped all over Japan. This story teaches us that, although we wish it could be, sometimes life is very unfair.