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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Buddha in the Attic, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender and Autonomy
Racism, Assimilation, and Cultural Identity
Community and Inter-Asian Prejudice
The Power of Collectivism
Summary
Analysis
On the scheduled evacuation day, all members of the Japanese community leave their homes wearing white identification tags affixed to their clothing, and crowds of non-Japanese neighbors watch them go. Different Japanese families and individuals leave their homes with various attitudes, but most rush hurriedly and are heartbroken to leave their homes, gardens, farms, and businesses. Some leave rice hidden at home for their families, expecting to return, and others leave flowers behind for their home’s next tenants. One woman, Haruko, leaves a small laughing brass Buddha in the corner of her attic, where it continues to laugh, unharmed. Many Japanese children leave their homes still unaware of what’s happening, but others leave knowing that they’re going to miss their high school graduations.
The continued first person plural narration heightens the notion that this evacuation day is a collective experience. While different Japanese people act in different ways as they leave their homes, the narration highlights that this forced evacuation is a traumatic event experienced by each member of the Japanese American community. Additionally, while the narration in this chapter does, at times, focus on the women, the narrator also seems to begin to represent the Japanese American community as a whole, rather than just the women. “We” begins to refer to women, men, teenagers, and children, again highlighting that this story is not the story of one individual person, but of a community.
Themes
