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) Ruth realizes that Nao doesn’t know that her great-uncle flew his plane into the sea—Nao thinks that Haruki #1 died “a war hero, carrying out his mission.” Nao has only read his official Japanese letters, but she never mentions a secret French diary. If Haruki #1 destroyed these pages, Ruth wonders how they ended up in the freezer bag. She wants to discuss this with Oliver, but he is out in the storm, looking for the missing cat.
Nao had idolized Haruki #1’s stoicism and courage, but his secret diary painted a more vulnerable picture of him and revealed his fears and moral quandaries. Ruth knows that this would change how Nao thinks of Haruki #1—and probably how she thinks of Haruki too, since Nao would no longer compare him to an impossible ideal. The mystery of how the secret diary ended up in the lunch box and reached Ruth puzzles her—it seems to have washed onto the island in an inexplicable, supernatural way that she can’t make sense of.
Themes
(2) Ruth goes out in the rain to get more firewood from their woodpile. She sees that it is very windy and worries about Oliver, who is out in the woods. She hears the Jungle Crow above her and asks it to go find Oliver, even though she feels silly talking to it. When she turns around, she sees Oliver walking out of the woods. He says that he hasn’t found the cat.
The Jungle Crow seems to be a magical guardian that understands Ruth’s anxieties and helps her out. This spiritual or supernatural connection between them reflects the idea that all “time beings” are connected.
Themes
