Tension between couple as a submerged volcano
In ‘The Second Bakery Attack’, the narrator and his wife wake up from a sleep with a strange, persistent hunger. When he suggests to go out to eat, the offer is refused by the wife even though he wanted to go. The narrator, at this point, begins to visualize this tension between them as a young couple as a volcano submerged in sea while he floated above it, scared when it might erupt. After they loot hamburgers from a restaurant, he begins to realize that his wife had more understanding of him than he credited for realizing that he has crossed the volcano, and is in safe waters.
Torture of the monster
In ‘The Little Green Monster’, a green monster traps the narrator in her house forcing her love on him. When she realizes that she can use her thoughts to affect the creature, she begins to imagine various ways in which she can torture the monster. It is noteworthy that she doesn’t kill him directly, but imagines various ways of torturing it first, making sure it suffered in agony before dying. It is as if the hatred aimed at the monster was not due to the monster but of cumulative hatred for all stalkers and lechers.
Obsessive Compulsive Tendencies
Narrators in multiple stories as ‘The Wind-Up Bird and The Tuesday’s Woman’, ‘The Kangaroo Communique’ and ‘The Last Lawn of the Afternoon’ show Obsessive Compulsive behavior like following an exact number of steps in a mundane task as ironing. The narrators also show a method in their activities, never diverting from the method. The conflict in the stories arise from the divergence in these methods.
Defeated Aoki
Ozawa in ‘The Silence’ says that Aoki managed to manipulate the whole school in giving Ozawa the silent treatment. This ends up breaking Ozawa to a point that he began to imagine killing Aoki, till the point he saw him travelling on a train. Although, Aoki tried to appear strong, a flicker in Aoki’s eyes told Ozawa that Aoki was defeated already and was just fighting so as to not appear as a coward. He describes Aoki as a defeated boxer, whose legs have given up, but he is still fighting.
