Doctor Atomic of July 16, 1945 (the day of the test). During the second act, time frequently slows down for the characters and then snaps back into reality. The opera ends in the final, prolonged moment before the bomb is detonated. Although the original commission for the opera suggested that U.S. physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," be fashioned as a 20th-century Doctor Faustus, Adams and Sellars deliberately attempted to avoid this characterization. Alice Goodman worked for two years with Adams on the project before leaving, objecting to the characterization of Edward Teller, as dictated by the original
Atomic bomb literature Atomic bomb literature There are several generations of atomic bomb writers. The first, made up of actual survivors of the bombings, who wrote of their own experiences, includes Yōko Ōta, Tamiki Hara, Shinoe Shoda, and Sadako Kurihara. The second, who wrote about the bomb in order to invoke the wider social and political issues it raises, includes Yoshie Hotta, Momo Iida, Kenzaburō Ōe, Masuji Ibuse, Ineko Sata. The third, whose writing looks to the future in a post-nuclear world, includes Kōbō Abe, Makoto Oda, and Mitsuharu Inoue. Perhaps the best known work of atomic bomb literature is "Black Rain" by