Memory and the Role of Silence 

Both A Pale View of Hills and Rhapsody in August display elements of historical fiction by using memory to revisit events that took place in connection with the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. on Nagasaki.  Both center on older women reflecting back after many years. A Pale view of Hills uses Etsuko as a somewhat unreliable first person narrator whose memory is highly selective. Etsuko uses the story of someone she knew in Nagasaki shortly after the bombing to help her deal with the guilt she feels from her daughter Keiko’s recent suicide. She avoids thinking/talking about her daughter directly by using another woman’s similar situation in moving from Japan with a young daughter. When confronted by Mrs. Waters, a former piano instructor, early in the novel Etsuko chooses to avoid the subject of Keiko saying only, “I haven’t heard from her recently”(51). Through the use of Sachiko’s story Estuko is able to admit by the end of the novel that she knew Keiko would be unhappy in England. Near the beginning Etsuko questions Sachiko about her decision to move to America based on her daughter’s well fare. Sachiko responds, “My daughter’s welfare is of the utmost importance to me…I wouldn’t make any decision that jeopardized her future. Sachiko points out things are better for women in America while Estuko states she is very happy with her traditional marriage we know she decides to later leave it. Three pages after slipping into the first person in the Sachiko story when saying to Mariko, “if you don’t like it over there, we can always come back (173)” Sachiko admits to younger daughter Niki, “I knew all along she wouldn’t be happy over here. But I decided to bring her just the same (176)”. Silence about Keiko pervades the conversations of Etsuko and Niki.

Rhapsody

In Rhapsody Kurosawa uses the memories of Grandmother Kane to help another generation learn about the bomb and the real lives and families destroyed by it. Kane’s children, also survivors, remain silent about the bomb and the grand kids seem initially unaware of how directly it has affected their family. Kane tells the kids about their Grandfather, a teacher, whose school was destroyed by the blast. She sits facing a fellow survivor in silence, their memories and suffering is beyond words. Kane also tells the kids about a brother who survived but was tormented by visions of the explosion. She struggles to remember her long lost brother who is dying in Hawaii. Although the stories help the children come to some sort of understanding, the painful memories begin to torment Kane, until she begins reliving the day the bomb was dropped. The historical event, the bomb, is the background for the entire story and it affects the lives of every character. Clark, the American cousin played by Richard Gere, instead of wishing to avoid the subject immediately requests going to the site where his Uncle died. They are joined by the kids and other survivors returning to remember those lost. This is an incredibly poignant scene and it takes place without dialogue. Kurosawa uses music in this and many other scenes to speak through the silence. The repeated march like song about the rose seems to imply a struggle to persevere through adversity and the surviving beauty that remains. Although three generations of lives have been affected they use the memory of that tragic event to help better understand each other.  

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Last Updated: 02 July 2002 
© Boone Nicholson, 2002
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