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
Secret French Diary 1. Haruki #1 wrote that he was keeping the pages of this diary secret by hiding them inside the lining of his uniform. Some of the other student soldiers warned him that the officers read their letters and diaries without warning, so to be careful not to write his true feelings. Haruki #1 decided to keep two records—one for show and one that told the truth. He wanted to get the true one to Jiko, but he wasn’t sure how he would be able to do this.
Haruki #1 and Jiko communicated very openly, which is why Haruki #1 wanted her to know the truth about his experience as a soldier. However, he was hampered from doing this by the very nature of his military camp, which forbade and punished open communication with the outside world.
Themes
Secret French Diary 2. Haruki #1 described how his commanding officer, F, brutally beat up the student soldiers, especially K, who acted “as though he didn’t feel a thing, blinking and smiling his sweet, otherworldly smile.” Haruki #1 volunteered to take K’s place, and F punched him so hard that it shredded the inside of Haruki #1’s mouth. Haruki #1 wrote that he could stand all this bullying only by thinking that Jiko would know the truth about it someday, although he didn’t know how to get these pages to her.
Haruki #1’s friend, K, was a philosopher who read Dogen’s work. He seemed like he “didn’t feel a thing” when he was being badly beaten, probably because he had learned to tune out the “mosquitoes,” just like Nao learned to do this with Jiko’s help. Haruki #1 describes his smile as “otherworldly,” which seems an apt description of someone who took Dogen’s spiritual wisdom to heart and wasn’t affected by the sorrows of this world. Haruki #1 was facing a lot of problems at the squadron, but what troubled him the most was that he couldn’t share this with Jiko and therefore had to bear everything alone.
Themes
Secret French Diary 3. The previous night, F forced Haruki #1 was forced by to play “the pleasure quarters game,” in which Haruki #1 had to pretend to be “a lady of the night.” Haruki #1 could hear K weeping that night.
“A lady of the night” is a prostitute, so Haruki #1 is implying that F sexually assaulted him. Like Nao’s experiences at school, the bullying Haruki suffered took a dark and sexual turn. And while K seemed immune to his own pain, Haruki #1’s suffering hurt him deeply.
Themes
Secret French Diary 4. Haruki #1 confessed that he wanted to kill F. Haruki #1 had been counting each blow that he got from F, and the total number so far was 267. He dreamed of returning each blow someday. Haruki #1 didn’t want to die before he got his revenge on F.
Like Nao, who felt angry and vengeful toward her classmates, Haruki #1’s anger overwhelms his life. Jiko rescued Nao was rescued from her dark thoughts, but Haruki #1 had to suffer alone, since he couldn’t communicate with anyone.
Themes
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Secret French Diary 5. K escaped at dawn. The other soldiers were told that he committed suicide, but someone who’d seen K’s body told Haruki #1 that he was actually shot in the back. Haruki #1 found K’s copy of Master Dogen’s Shōbōgenzō in his duffel. Haruki #1 felt frozen with grief and could not even cry. He thought it was best to forget how to think and feel during a war.
K attempted to escape, probably knowing that he wouldn’t succeed. He was willing to risk it because he could no longer bear to witness the officers’ cruelty at the camp, especially toward his friend, Haruki #1. When Nao was engulfed by her anger and bitterness, Jiko stepped in to help her. Similarly, K left Haruki #1 his copy of the Shōbōgenzō, which will be of help to him.
Themes
Secret French Diary 6. Haruki #1 was planning to slip these pages to Jiko when she visited, but he couldn’t bear to do it after seeing her pained expression upon meeting him. He lied and told her that his bruises were all part of military training, since he wanted to spare her more sorrow.
Haruki ended up lying to Jiko to spare her further pain, which indicates that the war’s far-reaching effects have even changed their close relationship.
Themes
Haruki #1 was initially afraid of F, but recently, he had been filled with pity for F. F seemed to sense this and beat him even harder, which made Haruki #1 pass out from the pain. However, when he regained consciousness, he experienced no pain and felt peaceful and empowered. Haruki #1 was no longer interested in counting the blows he had received or in returning them.
Haruki #1 was previously festering in his own anger, but then he chosen to move on from it. This made him feel empowered and peaceful despite the difficulty of his situation. He realized that he could control his reactions, even when the rest of the world was spinning out of control. Like Dogen advised, Haruki #1 made use of the present moment to make a positive change.
Themes
Secret French Diary 7. In an entry dated August 3, 1944, Haruki #1 wrote that there were rumors that Japan was doing badly in the war and that there might be an American invasion soon. He asked Jiko to be careful and consider moving to the countryside.
This letter suggests that Haruki #1 still hoped to get all these letters to Jiko. At this point, Haruki #1 is clinging to the hope that someone will be able to read his true thoughts—much like Nao is hopeful that someone will read and understand her diary.
Themes
Secret French Diary 8. Haruki #1 was obsessed with the ticking of the clock, since each moment hastened him toward his death. He wished that he could stop time. Haruki #1 wrote to Jiko: “I don’t want to die, Maman! I don’t want to die!”
In his “official” letters to Jiko, Haruki #1 seemed stoic about death, since the soldiers weren’t allowed to openly express their fears. However, in his secret diary, Haruki #1 expressed his true feelings of frustration and fear over being forced to die.
Themes
Haruki #1 apologized for his outburst and said that he didn’t want to be remembered that way. He said that the reason he didn’t rip up the pages was because he knew that he was the only one who would read them. Haruki #1 also pointed out that destroying his diary wouldn’t cure his fear, just like breaking the clocks wouldn’t stop time. He vowed to sit zazen and “study the self” as Dogen advised, so that he could improve himself in the little time he had left to live.
Clocks are a symbol of passing time in the novel, and in this passage, they reminded Haruki #1 that the little time he had left to live was quickly passing him by and he was powerless to stop it. He recognized his own fear and attempted zazen as a way to overcome these emotions. Nao admired Haruki #1 for his brazen courage, but this passage contradicts her earlier image of him—she and Haruki #1 are much more alike that Nao thought.
Themes
Haruki #1 felt silly about the fanciful ideas he wrote in his official letter to Jiko, in which he compared himself to the Crow Captain. He remembered how the Crow Captain in the story asked the stars to prevent anyone from having to kill others. In exchange for this, the Crow Captain promised to not complain even if he was forced to suffer endlessly. Haruki #1 found this passage to be moving and true to his own heart.
Once again, Haruki #1 brings up the Crow Captain, which solidifies his association with the Japanese Jungle Crow that hangs around Ruth’s house. In this passage, Haruki #1 hinted that he wouldn’t mind sacrificing himself for a gesture of peace, which hints at what his final action will be.
Themes
Secret French Diary 9. Haruki #1 recalled Dogen’s words that a person only needs one moment to find truth. Since Haruki #1 had little time left, he saw the value of each moment and understood the truth of those words. Haruki #1 wondered if he would, in his final moment, guide his plane into the “so-called” enemy or choose to die “in watery disgrace rather than inflamed heroics.” At night, he counted his juzu (Buddhist prayer beads), each one representing something he loved, situated in an endless circle.
Haruki #1 built on the idea he brought up in the previous section: that of sacrificing himself for a gesture of peace. He realized that this would be a big decision—in a moment, he would change the lives of many even though he would die “in disgrace.” As his death approached, Haruki #1 realized that there was so much he loved about the world despite its ugliness and sorrow.
Themes
Secret French Diary 10. Haruki #1’s squadron arrived at Kyushu, where he met two veteran soldiers from the China Offensive who boasted about their cruelty in China: they had raped grandmothers, murdered babies, and burned men over open fires. Haruki #1 was glad that he would not live long enough to become inured to such violence.
Haruki #1 recognized that the more time he spent in violent situations among violent men, he, too, might gradually become like the soldiers who seemed to have lost their humanity. He is glad that he will die before he changes so drastically.
Themes
After listening to these horrific tales, Haruki #1 was ashamed that he had wasted the diary about his troubles, which seemed negligible compared to what the people of China had experienced. He wrote that he would be flying out the following day, so this was his farewell note. He would like to somehow get this secret diary to Jiko, but he didn’t dare to—if it were to be discovered, it would jeopardize the pension she would receive after Haruki #1’s death.
Nao had a similar reaction after she read Haruki #1’s letters: she felt petty for complaining about the bullying she experienced when Haruki #1 had endured so much more. However, unbeknownst to Nao, Haruki #1 felt the same way when he heard about the violence that Chinese people had to endure at the hands of Japanese soldiers. This shows that both Nao and Haruki #1 are deeply empathetic, and that they both tend to question the validity of their own problems.
Themes
Haruki #1 planned to take these pages with him to the bottom of the sea. He trusted that Jiko already knew the things he had written, since she knew him so well. Haruki #1 had made his decision about where to fly his plane. He had always “hated war,” so he decided to steer his plane away from its target and to fly into the sea.
Haruki #1 trusted so deeply in his relationship with Jiko that he believed she understood his feelings, even though he would not be able to share this diary with her. He was right about this, as Jiko told Nao that she knew how Haruki #1 would react and what things he would find funny. In his last official letter to Jiko, Haruki #1 cryptically wrote that his every action would be motivated with the love and nonviolence that Jiko had taught him. He seemed to have been implying that he planned to fly his plane into the sea rather than at people, though he couldn’t say it openly in that letter. With this, Haruki #1 took Dogen’s advice to use each moment he had to the best of his ability.
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