Ayako Character Analysis

Ayako is the Japanese wife of an oyster farmer who lives in Whaletown. She tries to help Ruth decipher the Japanese letters that Ruth found in the lunch box that washed up on the beach, but Ayako cannot read the old-fashioned, handwritten Japanese characters. Ayako is young and is used to the kind of Japanese characters that can be typed on the computer. She represents how language changes and shifts with time.