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Zazen
Watches/Clocks
In A Tale for the Time Being, watches and clocks symbolize the fleeting nature of time. Inside the lunch box that washes up on Ruth’s beach, Ruth finds an old wind-up watch alongside…
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Crows
In the novel, crows—especially the Jungle Crow that shows up outside Ruth’s house—symbolize supernatural connections between the characters that transcend space and time. The Jungle Crow, a species native to Japan, inexplicably shows up…
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Waves/Tsunami
Waves, particularly the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, symbolize the unavoidability of change. One of the novel’s themes is that everything and everyone is constantly changing, and that people’s attempts to avoid change are…
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