A Pale View of Hills

“The English are fond of their idea that our race has an instinct for suicide, as if further explanations are unnecessary; for that was all they reported, that she was Japanese and that she had hung herself in her room.”

This passage at the outset of the novel alludes to the deep-seated cultural differences defining British-Japanese relations. Etsuko reveals the stereotypes about Japanese culture that are prevalent among the English, suggesting that people in England do not have an accurate understanding of Japanese culture. The reference to “an instinct for suicide” is a nod to several Japanese traditions that do, indeed, lead to suicide, like the traditional seppuku and WWII kamikaze soldiers. However, taking these instances of suicide out of context and concluding that there is some innate genetic tendency to seek death is a shallow and condescending attitude typical of how colonial powers think about non-Western cultures.

“The worst days were over by then. American soldiers were as numerous as ever—for there was fighting in Korea—but in Nagasaki, after what had gone before, those were days of calm and relief. The world had a feeling of change about it.” 

This passage exemplifies the omission present in any discussions of WWII and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Etsuko and her peers almost never directly mention the bombing, merely alluding to it as “the worst days” and “what had gone before.” These omissions speak to the difficulty of articulating something as atrocious as the atomic bomb and its devastating consequences for those left behind. The bombings are so traumatic that people are unable to talk or even think about them; it is as if there is an emptiness both physical and mental left behind.