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 that in Japan, when people wake up in the middle of the night and can’t move, feeling like a huge, evil spirit is crushing them,” they call it “metal-binding.” Nao experienced this after her father’s suicide attempt. However, she says that this stopped after her “funeral” at school, probably because she became a ghost. Nao wished that she could turn into a ghost who could get revenge on her classmates.
Nao’s descriptions of waking up feeling paralyzed and afraid are similar to how a person would feel during a panic attack. This suggests that she was struggling with anxiety and insomnia in the aftermath of Haruki’s suicide attempt. Nao was very attached to him, and the thought of losing him terrified her. However, her funeral changed Nao’s perception on death: she was quite convinced that she was now a ghost herself, and as a result, was more accepting of death. It no longer terrified her.
Themes
(2) After Nao’s funeral, she had a “crazy cosmic dream” about one of her classmates, Reiko. Reiko was smart and popular, and she always looked at Nao as if Nao was repulsive. Nao dreamed that she was stabbing Reiko’s “horrible eye”; it felt so real that she wondered if she would later hear that Reiko was murdered or that she hanged herself in the night.
Like Ruth, Nao, too, had dreams that felt very vivid. However, while Ruth’s dreams are about the quest for deeper spiritual understanding, Nao’s dream was violent and vengeful, which reflects her state of mind at the time.
Themes
Nao knew that Daisuke and Reiko went to the same cram (test-prep) school, so she cornered Daisuke one day to ask him how Reiko was doing. He said that Reiko had started wearing an eye patch over her left eye. Nao was excited that she had actually managed to hurt Reiko. The thought that she had become “a living ghost” made her feel empowered.
Nao was convinced that she was a ghost and had supernatural powers—and strangely, this belief of hers seems to have come true. Nao’s violent dream resulted in Reiko’s eye injury, which was a strange coincidence. Nao’s anger and desire for vengeance were so strong that they seemingly inflicted an injury on her enemy—but in the process, they were also changing Nao into a cruel, bitter person.
Themes
(3) A week after this, Jiko unexpectedly came to visit. When Nao opened the door, she first thought there were two men on the doorstep. Then, just as Nao realized that the visitors were women, the older of the two walked into the apartment past her. The woman went to the balcony, where Nao’s father was hiding out, and talked to him and patted his head when he started crying. Nao’s father called her “grandmother,” and Nao saw that he looked flushed and ashamed. Nao also felt ashamed of her father’s shabbiness and of their rundown apartment.
All the difficulties in Nao’s life were changing her into a vengeful person, but Jiko seems to have arrived in time to save Nao from her own anger and bitterness. The first time Nao saw the nuns, she thought they were men, an observation that will be important later, when Nao contemplates becoming a nun for her own reasons.
Themes
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(4) Nao made tea with the younger nun, Muji, and then they all made polite conversation until Nao’s mother came home from work. Nao’s mother seemed too surprised to find Jiko there, so Nao suspected that her mother organized the whole thing. After dinner, Nao snuck off into the bedroom to check the stats on her funeral video, but she was disappointed to see that there were no new views even though the funeral happened less than two weeks ago. Outside, in the living room, she could hear her parents talking to the Jiko and Muji about Nao’s problems at school.
Nao’s funeral video was briefly popular, and this had made her proud. But, like all things, this too changed, and her video was now old news.
Themes
When Nao returned to the living room, she felt everyone watching her. Then, Nao’s mother told her in a bright voice that Jiko had invited Nao to spend her summer vacation at Jiko’s temple in Miyagi. Nao’s father promised her that he would see some doctors while she was gone, and that they would make him better. Nao was upset as she realized the whole thing was a setup. She felt frozen and willed herself to stop breathing—but Jiko lightly put her hand over Nao’s, and Nao felt herself returning to the room. She agreed to go stay with Jiko.
Tomoko probably thought of Jiko’s temple as a safe place for Nao to spend her vacation, since Tomoko was always at work and couldn’t be sure that Nao was safe around her suicidal father and sketchy neighbors. However, this turned out to be a fortunate decision, since the reader knows that Nao ended up forming a close bond with Jiko. From the beginning, Jiko seemed to be able to sense the Nao’s pain and offer her the support she needed. Jiko’s comforting gesture of putting her hand over Nao’s recalls the gentle touch that grounded Ruth in her dream.
Themes
