Medicine and Health
Medicine appears as a kind of imagery throughout the novel. Sadao's choice to take care of the American puts the whole estate in a state of anxiety because they are committing a crime by helping him. Their decision to look after his health is a commentary on their shared human nature, and his slow recovery is well documented in the story. There are doctors and medical attendants who both help and harm their cause because they cannot help but become paranoid that someone will report them. Medical imagery is held in tension with their emotional disgust with the American.
The Man
Sadao and his wife see "something black come out of the mists. It was a man. He was flung out of the ocean—flung, it seems, to his feet by a breaker." In this creepy and jarring image, we see the ocean seemingly throwing the man out to Sadao, forever changing both of their lives. That the man is "black" gives an impression of darkness and danger, and that so much of him is obscured alludes to the coming confusion and obfuscation of Sadao's true feelings.
The Cook
The cook "splits a fowl's neck skillfully and held the fluttering bird and let its blood flow into the roots of a wisteria vine." This violent image suggests what she and the other servants wish would happen to the man, as well as what traditionally happens to men during a state of war. The blood coursing down from the bird is mirrored in the blood of the injured man, but Sadao does not want the man to die: rather, he wants the blood to be stanched and the man to be saved. It is an interesting contrast between the more enlightened doctor and his more stubborn and simple-minded servants.
