Stagnant water (symbol)
“An expanse of wasteground” which spreads over “several acres of dried mud and ditches” is viewed as “a health hazard”. In summer stagnant water attracts mosquitoes and makes people’s lives intolerable. Stagnant water becomes a symbol of those terrible war years and long-lived consequences. When Etsuko and Sachiko wander around muddy slopes looking for Mariko, it looks like they wander into their inner worlds. Both women have doubts and fears which prevent them from “a happy life” they dream about. Sachiko dreams about escaping from the old cottage on a muddy ground, while Etsuko worries whether she would be able to be a good mother.
Kittens (allegory)
Kittens represent uncertainty and helplessness. Little kittens may represent Mariko and Keiko, who are as dependent on their mothers as the kittens on a mother cat. When Sachiko drowns kittens, saying that they are just “creatures”, it reminds of the way women make decision concerning their children’s welfare. They believe that their daughters are just children, so they, being adults, know better what to do with their lives.
Death (motif)
There is no doubt that death is a motif of the story. It starts with Keiko’s suicide, and then a reader finds out that the protagonist manages to survive a great tragedy during the World War II. Mariko witnesses death of a woman “who cut her throat” and a child who was drown in “the canal”. Later on, there comes a series of “child murders”, which frightens all inhabitants of Nagasaki. Not to mention, that people in the story spend a lot of time “thinking about the dead”.
It can also be read that the recurring image of death is is representative of the deep-lying fissures that run through Japanese society. The character of Shigeo Matsuda suggests that Japan is a nation that had a corrupt and 'evil' sense of pride and nationhood before the war, and that great changes are necessary to combat this. The old ways in Japan, the methods employed by Ogata-san during his teaching career are stagnant like the wasteground outside the apartments, and that for new life then a whole new perspective is essential for Japan. Sachiko recognises this early on and actively seeks to leave the death of Japan for a new and better life in America. As Etsuko seems to agree with and sympathise with Ogata-san for his opinions about Japan, it suggests that she is either complicit in this 'evil' way of life, or, as is suggested by her eventual departure, that she, like many others, have been brain-washed by the former Japanese propaganda.
The unavoidable and strange presence of death throughout the novel constantly reinforces this idea, and as Keiko, who unlike Nikki is witness to and a product of this side of Japan, decides to end her own life, it suggests that escaping this sense of 'evil' and death is not as easy as Etsuko had hoped, and that it has followed her, in Keiko, all the way to England.
