Waves, particularly the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, symbolize the unavoidability of change. One of the novel’s themes is that everything and everyone is constantly changing, and that people’s attempts to avoid change are doomed to fail. When Ruth watches news coverage of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, she sees that the wave is immense and rapid, and that the “tiny people” people who are trying to get away from it don’t “stand a chance.” This suggests that, more generally, people are powerless against change in their lives.
When Jiko and Nao go on a picnic to the beach, Jiko asks Nao to try to attack the waves in an attempt to teach her that one can’t stop change no matter how hard one tries. Nao eventually realizes this too. After she stops trying to hit the waves with a stick, she gets tired, lies down in the water, and enjoys the feeling of the waves washing over her body. Afterward, she tells Jiko that it was a good feeling to let the ocean win, meaning that happiness lies in accepting change rather than resisting it.
Waves/Tsunami Quotes in A Tale for the Time Being
Every few hours, another horrifying piece of footage would break, and she would play it over and over, studying the wave as it surged over the tops of the seawalls, carrying ships down city streets, picking up cars and trucks and depositing them on the roofs of buildings. She watched whole towns get crushed and swept away in a matter of moments, and she was aware that while these moments were captured online, so many other moments simply vanished. […]
But always, from the vantage point of the camera, you could see how fast the wave was traveling and how immense it was.
Over and over, I ran at the sea, beating it until I was so tired I could barely stand. And then the next time I fell down, I just lay there and let the waves wash over me, and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get
back up. Just let my body go. Would I be washed out to sea? The sharks would eat my limbs and organs. Little fish would feed on my fingertips. My beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean, where anemones
would grow upon them like flowers. Pearls would rest in my eye sockets.
Waves/Tsunami Symbol Timeline in A Tale for the Time Being
