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 begins the next section in her diary with a family tree. She explains that her great-grandmother Jiko had three children: a son, Haruki #1, and two daughters, Sugako and Ema. Haruki #1 died in World War II, and Sugako didn’t marry. Jiko adopted Ema’s husband, Kenji, so that the Yasutani name wouldn’t die out. Ema and Kenji Yasutani were Nao’s grandparents, and they named their son (Nao’s father) Haruki in memory of Ema’s dead brother. Haruki married Tomoko, and Nao is their child. Nao says that thinking of the family tree makes her uncomfortable, because she is the last of the Yasutanis—the family name will die with her.
In the previous section, Ruth struggled to find the Yasutanis online because she didn’t know Ruth’s parents’ names. The next pages she reads in Nao’s diary gives her all their names, which is a strange coincidence—it seems like an answer to her question. Nao’s father is named Haruki, after his uncle Haruki #1. This indicates to the reader that they might share other qualities as well. Finally, Nao points out that she is the last of the Yasutanis, which makes her nervous. If she carries out her plan to kill herself, the family name will die along with her. Jiko made the effort to adopt her son-in-law in order to keep the family name going, so Nao likely assumes that that Jiko would be disappointed that the name would die out with Nao.
Themes
Haruki #1 was a student of philosophy before he became a kamikaze pilot. When Nao told Jiko that Haruki was also interested in philosophy and suicide, just like his uncle Haruki #1, Jiko told her that Haruki #1 wasn’t really interested in being a suicide bomber—he was forced to be one. What Haruki #1 really liked was French poetry, and he was bullied for this in the army. Nao thought that she and Haruki #1 were similar because they shared an interest in French culture, and she got bullied, just like he did.
Nao realized that Haruki #1 and Haruki share some commonalities, and that Nao and Haruki #1 do too. In this way, they are all connected despite Nao and her father never knowing Haruki #1s.
Themes
(2) Nao’s family pretended that Haruki’s suicide attempt never happened, though it changed all their lives. After this, Haruki began withdrawing from the world and turned into a hikikomori (a recluse). Nao’s mother realized that she would need to find work and landed a job as an administrative assistant at a publishing house. Nao says that this was very impressive, even though the job paid very little, because Japanese companies usually don’t hire 39-year-old women.
Haruki’s suicide attempt caused him to become even more isolated and insecure. Tomoko, on the other hand, seemed empowered as she successfully re-entered the work force. This is an example of how a significant event can affect different people in different ways, though they are both changed by it. Importantly, Nao’s parents made these decisions in isolation, without communicating and acknowledging the problems they were facing together.
Themes
Nao started ninth grade that March, and the bullying became worse. She had managed to hide her bruises and cuts from her family, but one day, their bathtub broke and they had to use the sento (public baths). Nao tried to go to the sento when Tomoko was at work, so that Nao could hide her bruises. Nao enjoyed observing the grannies and the bar hostesses who were around at that time. She played a game in which she matched the smooth-bodied hostesses to the grannies, trying to guess how each one’s body might change as she aged.
The fact that Nao made the extra effort to hide her bruises from her mother shows how reluctant she was to share her problems and feelings. Nao certainly found it hard to communicate with her. At the public bath, Nao observed how time passes and changes everyone. This emphasizes that change is an unavoidable and universal part of life.
Themes
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Nao was fascinated by the hostesses and thought they were “pretty and bold and behaved in a liberated way.” However, Nao’s mother disapproved of Nao hanging out with them, and she insisted that Nao go to the sento with her to avoid them. One night, a woman who was at the sento spotted Nao’s bruises and began to ask loudly if she had a rash or a disease. Nao’s mother came to inspect her too, and she quickly told the woman that they were just bruises from gym class.
Nao thought that the hostesses were simply “bold” and “liberated” women, which reveals her naïveté about sex. The hostesses were actually sex workers, and the people they dressed up for and had sex with were their clients rather than partners they chose—but Nao didn’t realize this. Her mother wanted to discourage Nao from spending time with the hostesses, but she wasn’t clear to Nao about why, exactly, she disapproved of them. The lack of clear communication between them resulted in Nao not understanding that hanging out with the hostesses might be dangerous for a young girl like her.
Themes
At home, Tomoko inspected Nao’s bruises and scabs, and Nao finally told her mother about the bullying. She didn’t want her mother going to the school and complaining, so she downplayed it and said it happened to all the new kids. Tomoko told Nao that she should join some after-school activities or clubs to make friends. Nao was shocked that her mother would suggest this after seeing how badly her classmates had hurt her. She writes that until that point, she thought that only her father was insane—but she now realized that her mother was crazy too. Nao says that she has no one to rely on and feels completely alone.
Even when Nao finally told her mother about the bullying, her mother’s reaction showed that she didn’t really listen to Nao. She didn’t hear Nao’s pain and loneliness, and she instead came up with her own solutions that were completely disconnected from the way Nao felt. As a result of this complete breakdown in communication, Nao felt abandoned by the adults who were supposed to take care of her.
Themes
(2) Nao’s family pretended that Haruki’s suicide attempt never happened, though it changed all their lives. After this, Haruki began withdrawing from the world and turned into a hikikomori (a recluse). Nao’s mother realized that she would need to find work and landed a job as an administrative assistant at a publishing house. Nao says that this was very impressive, even though the job paid very little, because Japanese companies usually don’t hire 39-year-old women.
Haruki’s suicide attempt caused him to become even more isolated and insecure. Tomoko, on the other hand, seemed empowered as she successfully re-entered the work force. This is an example of how a significant event can affect different people in different ways, though they are both changed by it. Importantly, Nao’s parents made these decisions in isolation, without communicating and acknowledging the problems they were facing together.
Themes
Nao started ninth grade that March, and the bullying became worse. She had managed to hide her bruises and cuts from her family, but one day, their bathtub broke and they had to use the sento (public baths). Nao tried to go to the sento when Tomoko was at work, so that Nao could hide her bruises. Nao enjoyed observing the grannies and the bar hostesses who were around at that time. She played a game in which she matched the smooth-bodied hostesses to the grannies, trying to guess how each one’s body might change as she aged.
The fact that Nao made the extra effort to hide her bruises from her mother shows how reluctant she was to share her problems and feelings. Nao certainly found it hard to communicate with her. At the public bath, Nao observed how time passes and changes everyone. This emphasizes that change is an unavoidable and universal part of life.
Themes
Nao was fascinated by the hostesses and thought they were “pretty and bold and behaved in a liberated way.” However, Nao’s mother disapproved of Nao hanging out with them, and she insisted that Nao go to the sento with her to avoid them. One night, a woman who was at the sento spotted Nao’s bruises and began to ask loudly if she had a rash or a disease. Nao’s mother came to inspect her too, and she quickly told the woman that they were just bruises from gym class.
Nao thought that the hostesses were simply “bold” and “liberated” women, which reveals her naïveté about sex. The hostesses were actually sex workers, and the people they dressed up for and had sex with were their clients rather than partners they chose—but Nao didn’t realize this. Her mother wanted to discourage Nao from spending time with the hostesses, but she wasn’t clear to Nao about why, exactly, she disapproved of them. The lack of clear communication between them resulted in Nao not understanding that hanging out with the hostesses might be dangerous for a young girl like her.
Themes
At home, Tomoko inspected Nao’s bruises and scabs, and Nao finally told her mother about the bullying. She didn’t want her mother going to the school and complaining, so she downplayed it and said it happened to all the new kids. Tomoko told Nao that she should join some after-school activities or clubs to make friends. Nao was shocked that her mother would suggest this after seeing how badly her classmates had hurt her. She writes that until that point, she thought that only her father was insane—but she now realized that her mother was crazy too. Nao says that she has no one to rely on and feels completely alone.
Even when Nao finally told her mother about the bullying, her mother’s reaction showed that she didn’t really listen to Nao. She didn’t hear Nao’s pain and loneliness, and she instead came up with her own solutions that were completely disconnected from the way Nao felt. As a result of this complete breakdown in communication, Nao felt abandoned by the adults who were supposed to take care of her.
Themes
(3) Nao’s mother didn’t do anything immediately, so Nao hoped that she had forgotten about the incident. However, a week after her mother spotted her scars and bruises, Nao arrived at school and sensed that something was different. Her classmates ignored her, and Nao suspected that they were planning something terrible. She decided to be very cautious, but no one bothered her all day. As she left school, she felt like an invisible ghost.
Nao didn’t trust her mother to respect her feelings and not mention the bullying to the school administrators. In fact, even after Nao suspects that her mother did complain to the school, she’s left to deduce this herself rather than confirming it with her mother. Again, there was no communication between them, and Nao is left feeling ostracized and overlooked.
Themes
(4) Nao’s ninth-grade homeroom teacher, Ugawa Sensei, joined her classmates in ignoring her. Ugawa Sensei was a substitute for the regular teacher, who was away on maternity leave. Usually, substitute teachers were even lower on the food chain than transfer students, but Ugawa Sensei managed to gain some points with the popular kids by joining them in ignoring Nao. He marked her absent every day and pretended he couldn’t see or hear her when she answered him. Nao’s classmates enjoyed this joke. Soon, Nao felt like her “voice stopped working,” and like she was barely even visible to others.
The new form of bullying that Nao’s classmates and teacher used on her was to completely ignore her—in other words, they completely stopped communicating with her. While even the previous forms of bullying were extreme, Nao found being completely ignored even harder to deal with. Completely cut off from communicating with others, she began to doubt her very existence.
Themes
Sometimes, Nao texted with her Kayla, her best friend from Sunnyvale. She found this stressful, because Kayla wanted to know what Japanese school was like, and Nao didn’t want to tell her about the bullying and seem like a loser. So, instead, Nao told her about interesting Japanese things like anime and fashion trends. Kayla wrote that Nao seemed so far away that it felt “kind of unreal.” Nao thought that it was true that Nao was “unreal, and [her] life was unreal,” while the real place of Sunnyvale felt incredibly distant in time and space.
Nao’s inability to tell Kayla what her life was really like shows that it can even be difficult to communicate with friends, especially when a person is worried about being judged. In contrast, Nao could communicate easily with Jiko because Nao knew that Jiko would accept her completely. Nao thought of her past as being “real,” because her memories of it were happy, while she found her unhappy present to be “unreal.” However, according to Jiko’s Buddhist philosophy, only the present is real, while the past is a memory and therefore unreal. At this point in time, Nao hadn’t yet realized this.
Themes
(5) After his suicide attempt, Nao’s father spent all his time reading books on Western philosophy and making origami insects. He covered a philosopher per week, which kept him busy. Also, his origami insect creations were intricate and beautiful. In the evenings, Nao did her homework next to her father while he read his books and worked on his origami. Nao liked spending time with him, even though she suspected that he wished he were dead.
Despite his suicide attempt and shutting himself off from the outside world, Haruki was still interested in learning and in creating art—he was still interested in some aspects of life. This passage also shows Nao’s and Haruki’s love for each other, as Nao enjoys hanging out with her father despite all the problems they’ve endured. At the same time, she can only suspect what Haruki feels, since they do not communicate freely.
Themes
(6) Nao says that in Japan, a furiitaa is a person who works only part-time and has a lot of free time. Sitting at Fifi’s, Nao looks around and thinks that the other customers must all be furiitaa, since they have time to waste at coffee shops. Later, Nao thinks, they’ll go to their bedrooms in their parents’ houses. The waitresses are furiitaa too, just working there “for the time being.” Sometimes, furiitaa is spelled “freeter” in English, which reminds Nao of the expression “to fritter your life away.” She says that she is still young, so it’s fine for her to waste her time—but she worries about her father doing this.
Nao’s reflection that the waitress at Fifi’s is just working there “for the time being” is a reference to the title of the novel. If the narrative in Nao’s diary is the titular “tale for the time being,” then perhaps Nao, too, feels like her story is only temporary—which makes sense, as she’s revealed that she plans to commit suicide. Nao also emphasizes the importance of using every moment of time wisely—especially for an adult like her father, who is supposed to be responsible about his time and doesn’t have too much life left to live.
Themes
