Suicide
Suicide is a theme of the novel. Suicide runs in Nao’s family. Her great uncle, Haruki #1 is a kamikaze pilot during World War II. He is trained to take his life while taking out the enemy. He does not want to kill anyone, however. He is a pilot because his family will get compensation for his death. On the day of the mission, he crashes his plane into the ocean rather than into the targeted battleship.
Nao’s father attempts suicide several times. He feels that his family will be better off without him. In the Japanese culture, people commit suicide for honor or out of shame. Nao’s father attempts to commit suicide out of shame. Nao does not see any reason to live. She sees how her father attempted to deal with his pain and sees suicide as a viable solution. She sees her and her father as people who would not fight to survive. She believes that had they been in the towers on 9/11 they would have jumped out the windows rather than attempt to get out of the building.
Cultural differences
Cultural differences are a theme of the novel. Nao spends most of her childhood in California. In America, she is taught that she has control over her destiny and has a sense of individuality. Her life is relaxed. When her family moves to Japan, she is thrown into a cultural that is focused and driven. Nao is far behind her classmates academically and therefore is placed in a class with much younger students.
The Japanese culture believes in predestination. They feel that one decision will affect their whole lives and this makes them driven to get into a good school. If they do not, they will not be successful. Nao feels lost in this culture after her childhood in California. Her relaxed attitude makes her different from everyone else and this culture shock leaves her feeling lonely and alienated even from her parents who grew up in Japan so understand the culture.
Bullying
Bullying is a theme of the novel. Nao is bullied for being different. She is not as smart as her classmates because of her education in America where students are not as driven as the Japanese students. The fact that she is older than her classmates does not help. Nao is also bigger than her fellow classmates because of her eating habits that she learned in California.
The entire class and her teacher are part of the bullying. The students pinch and cut her in the hallways and videotape an assault on her in the bathroom. They shun her in the classroom and pretend that she does not exist. They even prepare a funeral for her, in which the teacher participates. Ruth and Oliver cannot understand the mental bullying that Nao is made to endure. They cannot understand how a teacher can join in on terrorizing a young girl.
Nao’s great uncle, Haruki #1 is bullied by his commanding officer. He is seen as weak because he does not believe in war and was drafted to fight. The officer abuses his power by making Haruki #1 do whatever he asks. He also enjoys physically harming the young man. He uses his authority to make himself feel superior. A bully bolsters their sense of self by making someone else feel inferior.
Time
Time is a theme of the novel. The novel follows the story of Nao and Ruth cutting from Nao’s story to Ruth’s story blurring the time between the two. Ruth is lost in this time distortion. She believes that she can help Nao and her father, but the events she is reading about happened a decade before. This passage of time does not seem relevant for Nao is able to affect both timelines. Her words are as real to Ruth as if Nao is speaking to her.
The passage of time is especially scary for Ruth. It makes her believe that she is developing Alzheimer’s like her mother. Loss of time is a symptom of the disease and Ruth loses herself in Nao’s story and loses bits of time. She confuses past and present and gets lost in time. The blurring of time causing an interconnection between the stories of Ruth and Nao, even though they are separated by ten years, this connection makes Ruth want to help the young girl and hope that she was able to have a good life.
Jealousy
Jealousy is a theme of the novel. There are many people who search the Canadian beaches for treasures that come from the ocean. They are looking for debris from the tsunami of 2011, which has taken years to cross the ocean. Ruth finds the diary of Nao Yasutani along the beach of her small Canadian island. She believes it to be part of the debris from the tsunami. Her friend, Muriel, is jealous that her friend found this important piece of debris. As an anthropologist, she feels that she is a better observer of the human condition and more qualified to read and interpret the diary. There is a rivalry between the beach combers to find the most interesting objects and Ruth’s find has a deep impact on her life.
