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) After Nao’s decided to commit suicide, everything that Jiko had told her about time started to make sense to her. Nao appreciated every moment she had left, knowing that she didn’t have too many. She walked around the park looking at the cherry blossoms. When the wind blew petals down, she was felt overcome with both beauty and sadness. Nao also decided to write Jiko’s story before she killed herself, because she valued Jiko’s wisdom and wanted it to live on even after she and Jiko were gone.
As soon as Nao decided to kill herself, she became more aware of the fleeting nature of time that Jiko had talked about. Nao also started paying attention to the beauty of the world, since she knew she wouldn’t be around much longer to appreciate it. In Japan, cherry blossoms symbolize the beauty of spring and also the fleeting nature of life. The flowers bloom only for a short period before they dry and fall—however, the falling petals are also beautiful, which acknowledges the idea that change and death can be beautiful. Nao was moved by this idea.
Themes
(2) Since Nao had very little time left on Earth, she didn’t want to waste it on “stupid dates.” But at the café, Babette told her that she had to go on a date or get out. Then, Babette proceeded to set her up on a date with the “creepy hentai” who was a regular at the café—the same man who used to stare at Nao in her school uniform, which made her uncomfortable. Babette gave Nao a cut of the money the hentai paid her, but Nao said she had self-respect and wasn’t doing it for the money. Babette pinched Nao and called her a “lazy and selfish” American, and she ordered her to go to the hentai.
Earlier, Nao was feeling very defeated and hopeless—she didn’t even care to protest against the “dates” Babette set her up on. However, after she decided to kill herself, she was more aware of the value of her time and protested against doing something she didn’t want to. This shows that Dogen’s advice to pay attention to every moment worked for Nao, since readers can see that it helped Nao make a good choice. However, Babette was no longer friendly to Nao when Nao refused to go on dates—she bullied Nao into going. Like Nao’s classmates, Babette, too, saw Nao as an outsider because she used to live in America.
Themes
The hentai was waiting for Nao in the reception area, and in the crowded elevator, he groped her under her skirt. Nao wanted to scream, but she reasoned that he had paid to do this, and so she had to allow him to do what he wanted. Nao said that she had “no self-respect,” so this didn’t matter. At the hotel, the hentai performed sexual acts on her, and Nao dissociated into a faraway place in her mind.
Nao was clearly in a more dangerous situation with this hentai than was with Ryu, who was relatively gentle with her. After her encounter with Babette, Nao once again felt defeated and too broken to fight against the abuse—she thought that Babette was her only friend, and after Babette’s treachery, Nao once again felt completely alone. Nao felt such a strong sense of self-derision that she seemed to believe she didn’t deserve any better.
Themes
Nao’s phone rang while she was with the hentai, and she began to cry because she thought it might be Jiko, who she missed very much. Just then, the hentai did something that hurt Nao a lot and shocked her into reacting. She straddled him and began hitting him, which he seemed to enjoy very much. After he fell asleep, Nao checked her phone and saw that the call was from Jiko. There was also a text from Muji which said: “Sensei’s last moments. Come soon.”
When Jiko called Nao, Nao was reminded that there was someone in the world who loved her and cared about her, and she found the strength to fight against the hentai. Nao intended to use her time wisely and write Jiko’s life story, but she has instead been wallowing in grief and self-derision. Now, Jiko was dying, which reminded Nao that she had ended up wasting her time.
Themes
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Nao hurried home. She wanted to find her father and go to Jiko’s temple, and she hoped that Jiko would be absolutely fine by the time they reached. She found her father dressed in his cheap suit and ready to go out. There was “something strange about him, even stranger than usual, like he had turned into a zombie.” He told Nao that he was going out to have a drink with an old friend and that he would be back soon. Nao knew that he was lying and realized that he was going to go kill himself. She said nothing to him about Jiko and decided to go by herself to Jiko’s temple.
Previously, Haruki was interested in his hobbies and in the news, but he changed. He now seemed lifeless and uninterested in everything around him—Nao described him as being like a “zombie.” She suspected that his suicide attempt this time would be successful, since he seemed serious about dying. Nao felt that it was no use telling him about Jiko, since Haruki was too focused on his own misery. She felt like she wouldn’t be able to reach him even if she spoke to him.
Themes
Nao reaches the town closest to the temple late at night, and she has to wait until morning for the buses to start running again. She sits at the station, writing in her diary and pretending that she has a friend to write to. But Nao says that her reader is just a lie—just “another stupid story she made up” because she is lonely. The truth is that Nao is “all alone.”
Nao is worried that Jiko and Haruki will soon be dead, and this makes her feel lonelier than ever before. Previously, she took comfort in confiding in her reader—but in her extreme sadness this is no longer enough to comfort her.
Themes
Nao says that she only cared about her “stupid life,” just like her father only cared about “his own stupid life.” Nao hasn’t written about Jiko’s life, and now, Jiko is probably dead—Nao has wasted the time she had. Nao’s father, too, is probably already dead, and Nao doesn’t believe that she herself exists, either, since she doesn’t believe in herself. At the station, no one looks at her, and she feels “invisible.” She thinks that this “is what now feels like.”
Nao is aware that she didn’t use her time mindfully, the way she hoped she would. With this, she realizes that, just like Haruki, she’s been too focused on her own misery. She regrets this, because she sees it as selfish and wasteful of her time. As she waits at the station for the bus to Jiko’s temple, she seems completely hopeless and writes that her present moment makes her feel “invisible,” as if she doesn’t matter and doesn’t exist.
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