Ayako is the Japanese wife of an oyster farmer who lives in Whaletown. She tries to help Ruth decipher the Japanese letters that Ruth found in the lunch box that washed up on the beach, but Ayako cannot read the old-fashioned, handwritten Japanese characters. Ayako is young and is used to the kind of Japanese characters that can be typed on the computer. She represents how language changes and shifts with time.
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Ayako Character Timeline in A Tale for the Time Being
The timeline below shows where the character Ayako appears in A Tale for the Time Being. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part I, Chapter 4: Ruth
Since Ruth can’t read the Japanese letters, she took them to Ayako, the Japanese wife of an oyster farmer who lives on the island. Ayako managed to...
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