Picture from Virtual Tour of Nagasaki

The water imagery in A Pale View of Hills is very prevalent during the entire novel.  In an article "Road to East Asia" it describes the drizzle of rain in the very beginning of the novel.  The drizzle is what reminds Etsuko of Sachiko drowning her daughter Mariko's kittens.  Sachiko drowns the kittens in a box, while her daughter Mariko watches her mother murder her pets.  This image can be seen as very negative, which suggests death, pain and sadness.  Mariko runs away on the bridge above the water to show her pain.  Ishiguro uses the water imagery for Mariko, who escapes over the bridge to the woods to find her "solace" (pg. 1).

The water imagery also describes death and suffering in the article "Road to East Asia".  After the atomic bomb, Nagasaki is muddy and smells from the standing water in the fields (pg. 1).  Etsuko describes the smell and what it looks like.  The narrator brings up the field of standing water throughout the book.

In the article "Road to East Asia", water is mentioned as an escape.  It also brings the separation between sickness and health.  The Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean is the bridge between the peace of the West and the nightmare of Nagasaki (pg. 1 & 2).

Etsuko sees so much pain from the image of water.  It symbolizes the death of her daughter, the drowning of the kittens, the pain that is endured by Mariko, leaving her husband and going overseas to England, and the distance she feels with her daughter Niki in the drizzling rain. 

For Mariko, the pain is horrific.  She cared for her kittens like they were her children.  Mariko wanted to take her kittens when they were to leave Nagasaki.  Sachiko could not see this as possible.  Sachiko drowns the kittens in a box right in front of Mariko.  She stares at her mother in anguish, and then goes running down by the river to save her kittens.

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Web Background URL of this page: http://web.cocc.edu/wr316ca/tanyae/water.htm Last updated: March 18, 2004 Copyright © 2003, Tanya Earp