Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Tale for the Time Being, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time, Impermanence, and the Present
The Difficulty of Communication
Life vs. Death
Coincidences and Connections
Sexual Perversion and Violence
Summary
Analysis
(1) Nao writes about having read somewhere that men born between April and June are more likely to commit suicide. Her father was born in May, and she says that this might explain why he’s tried to kill himself, though he hasn’t succeeded in doing so yet. Nao says that she and her dad are in the middle of a fight, because Nao has stopped going to school. She messed up her high school entrance exams and can now only go to a high school for low-achieving kids. Nao would rather become a nun like Jiko, but her parents insist that she graduates from high school first.
So far, Nao has revealed to her reader that she plans to kill herself. Here, she reveals that her father, too, seems to have the same idea and has even attempted suicide. There’s no indication that Nao’s father knows about her plan, but nevertheless, suicide is a connection between these two characters.
Themes
(2) Nao writes that it isn’t really her fault that she messed up on the entrance exams. With her American educational background, she had no chance of getting into a good Japanese school. Her father wants her to apply to an international high school and then move to Canada, which he feels is like America but safer. Nao says that her dad used to love living in America, back when they lived in Sunnyvale, California. They moved there when Nao was three, and her dad was a well-paid programmer in Silicon Valley.
Nao’s life has undergone some big changes in the recent past, as her family has moved from California to Japan. Her struggles with adapting to her new schooling shows that change can be unpleasant and difficult. Nao’s father wants Nao to study in Canada, which must seem exciting for Ruth, who is reading this diary in Canada. This is yet another coincidental link between these two characters.
Themes
However, when the dot-com bubble burst, Nao’s father’s company went bankrupt. The family lost their visas and had to move back to Japan. Since Nao’s father had taken much of his salary in stock options, they returned with no savings. Nao thought of herself as American and spoke very little Japanese, so the move was very hard on her. Since her parents couldn’t afford a fancy private school that would help Nao catch up to her Japanese grade level, they enrolled her in eighth grade at a public junior high school.
Nao’s family’s situation highlights the inevitability of change: even though her father was a highly skilled programmer with a seemingly stable job, the company’s dissolution was beyond his control. There was seemingly nothing anyone could have done to predict or prevent the dot-com bubble burst—it just happened. Jiko’s Buddhist concept of “time beings” has taught Nao that change like this is a fundamental aspect of life, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Nao to cope with the fallout. All the changes in her life have clearly been hard on her, as she’s been uprooted from her former life and thrust into an unfamiliar setting.
Themes
Nao had no idea how to behave in a Japanese classroom, and she also struggled with the language. She was older and bigger than the other kids in her class, and she didn’t have an allowance or expensive things, since her parents were broke. For these reasons, Nao says, she was bullied relentlessly. She says that she wouldn’t have survived the bullying if Jiko hadn’t taught her how to develop her “superpower.”
It seems like Jiko was the main adult figure in Nao’s life who helped her survive bullying. Notably, Nao doesn’t mention her parents helping her. This suggests that even people who love one another and live together can sometimes suffer alone, like Nao, until they find someone with whom they can truly communicate.
Themes
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(3) The first time Nao’s father tried to commit suicide was around a year ago, just six months after they moved to Japan. They lived in a tiny, rundown two-room apartment, because the rent in Tokyo was so high and they couldn’t afford anything else. All their neighbors were bar hostesses who brought their dates back home at five in the morning. While Nao and her family ate breakfast, they could hear the neighbors moaning loudly as they had sex.
While this section doesn’t specify exactly why Nao’s father attempted suicide, it hints that his sudden fall from grace—from being a hotshot Silicon Valley programmer to being poor and unemployed in Japan—might have had something to do with it. Like Nao, her father seems to have struggled with change. Meanwhile, even Nao’s home environment is saturated with explicit sexuality, which is perhaps why she feels comfortable spending time at places like the French maid café.
Themes
In those days, Nao’s father would go out every day to look for employment, and Nao and her father would leave the apartment together every morning. While Nao’s father had been “cool” in Sunnyvale, riding his bike to work in jeans and sneakers, he now wore an ugly suit. Nao, too, felt foolish and unattractive in her school uniform.
Again, both Nao and her father are struggling with the changes in their circumstances. The reader knows that these problems cause both of them to feel suicidal, which speaks to just how difficult coping with change can be.
Themes
Nao and her father always took the long route as they walked together, and they often stopped at a tiny temple en route that Nao says was “a special place.” At the temple, she clapped her hands twice and bowed in front of a statue of the Buddha, like her father had shown her. Nao always wished that her father would soon find a job and that they could move back to Sunnyvale. If those two wishes couldn’t come true, at least that the kids at school would stop bullying her.
Even before Nao meets Jiko, she is attracted to the spirituality and peace of Buddhist temples; Nao and Jiko share this link. Nao’s wishes at the temple emphasize her extreme unhappiness with her present circumstances and a desire to return to her past in Sunnyvale.
Themes
Then, Nao’s father would walk her to school, and they would talk on the way. They were always polite but avoided talking about their problems in order to keep each other happy. As they got close to the school gates, Nao wanted to cling to her father and beg him not to leave, because she knew the kids inside were waiting to pick on her.
Even though Nao loves her father and enjoys spending time with him every morning, she does not feel comfortable telling him about her troubles at school. Her love for him is evident because she wants to cling to him when she is afraid to enter school—and yet their relationship is too polite for her to tell him this. Nao guesses that her father, too, has troubles that he is not sharing with her. This shows that communication is often hard, even between people who love each other.
Themes
(4) As soon as Nao’s father left, her classmates started to move in. By the time she walked in through the doors of the school, she would usually be covered with cuts and bruises; her uniform would be untucked and full of tiny tears made with nail scissors that the girls kept in their pencil cases. Nao pretended to ignore them, but the bullying continued all day. Sometimes, her classmates pretended to gag as they walked by Nao’s desk and said that she smelled like a gaijin (“foreigner”). Other times, they sang demeaning, sexist rap lyrics to her.
The extreme bullying that Nao faced at school is shocking: she was hurt physically in addition to being called names and excluded. The bullying also had a sexual undertone, as the kids sang explicit lyrics to her. This adds yet another layer to Nao’s complicated outlook toward sex.
Themes
Nao’s mother was almost never home when Nao got back from school. Her mother’s favorite pastime in those days was to clutch her “old Gucci handbag” and stare at the jellyfish in the city aquarium. In hindsight, Nao realizes that her mother was probably having a nervous breakdown at this time.
Just like Nao and her father, Nao’s mother was also struggling to accept the sudden and unpleasant changes in her life. Her “old Gucci handbag” symbolizes the privileged, comfortable life she led in America, and she seemed to be “clutching” onto the past. Additionally, like Nao and her father, Nao’s mother didn’t communicate her anxiety and sadness with her family—it is only later on that Nao infers how her mother must have been feeling at that time.
Themes
(5) After a couple of months, Nao’s father announced that he’d gotten a job as a chief programmer at a start-up. His salary wasn’t high, but still, the family was overjoyed. Her father left for work in the mornings with Nao and came home late at night. Though Nao was still bullied at school, and the family still didn’t have much money, Nao felt good because she was filled with optimism for their future. Nao’s mother, too, stopped visiting the aquarium. Instead, she cleaned the apartment and even confronted the neighbors about the noise they made.
This passage shows how hope can change one’s perception of the present. Even though Nao and her mother were dealing with the same problems that they had before, they were now hopeful for a better future—and this changed the way they perceived their problems. However, the reader knows that Jiko and Dogen stress the importance of the present moment, because that is the only thing people can control in their lives. The future is unknowable and uncontrollable.
Themes
At Christmas, the family ate snacks and watched TV, and Nao’s father told them about his work. Later, as Nao writes in her diary, she wonders how her father ever thought he’d get away with it. She wonders if perhaps he didn’t think at all or if he was crazy enough to believe his own story.
Nao hints that her father was lying to them about the job, which seems to be a consequence of the family’s inability to communicate with each other. Nao’s father felt intense pressure to fulfill his role as a provider and couldn’t bear to admit that he was unable to fill this role.
Themes
Soon after Nao’s father started working again, her parents started arguing about money. Nao’s mother wanted her father to hand over his salary to her so she could manage it, but her father insisted that he deposited all of it in a high-yield account. Sometimes, he gave her mother a stack of yen bills, but never his whole salary. Right before Nao’s 15th birthday, her mother found stubs from the horse races in her father’s pocket and confronted him about it. He immediately left the house and got drunk on sake, and then he jumped in front of the Chuo Rapid Express train. Luckily, the conductor spotted him and was able to slam the brakes in time.
The lack of communication between the family members led to Nao’s father resorting to desperate lies to cover his inadequacies. Finally, when Nao’s mother confronted him about them, he ended up trying to kill himself rather than owning up to his failures. This action was a result of the complete breakdown in communication between the family members. Nao’s father seemed convinced that his family would reject him if they knew the truth—he didn’t even consider that they would still love him if he failed at being the breadwinner.
Themes
Later, at home, Nao’s father confessed that he didn’t really have a job and that he instead spent all day sitting on a park bench, feeding the crows. Initially, he’d won some money at the horse races, but later he’d lost it all. Bowing down low, he apologized to Nao for having no money to buy her a birthday present. Later, Nao’s mother pretended that he’d only slipped down the train tracks since he’d been so drunk. Her father went along with this story, but Nao knows it isn’t true.
Nao’s mother covered up her father’s suicide attempt with a lie rather than talking to him about his emotional suffering or offering him support or help. This emphasizes that Nao’s family couldn’t communicate openly with one another. Meanwhile, Nao’s father’s apology shows his deep love for her and his shame at being unable to provide for his daughter.
Themes
(6) Nao writes about Jiko’s belief that everything that happens to a person is because of his or her karma—a kind of cosmic energy that’s influenced by what a person does and says, or even by what they think. A person’s karma is affected not just by their deeds and thoughts in this lifetime but by their past and future lives too. Nao thinks that perhaps it is her father’s karma to end up on a park bench feeding crows. She also can’t blame him for wanting to rush into the next lifetime.
Jiko’s belief in karma (a core concept in Buddhism) speaks to the idea that everything is interconnected and that anyone and anything can be an agent of change—no deed is without consequences. Nao understands her father’s desire to kill himself because, in her eyes, his life is pretty hopeless—in a sense, he seems destined to be a loser. But, since Nao and her father do not communicate freely, she has no clear sense of what’s going on in his head or what’s really motivated his actions thus far.
Themes
