Symbols
As the police's oppression grows, the residents of the island grow cold and numb to the disappearances. It could be also due to this weather phenomenon.
What is snow?
This is the first duty of the Memory Police.
What is "to enforce the disappearances"?
Finish the quote: “Even if they fade,..."
"...something remains”
The protagonist is led up into a room in which she sees a mountain of these, "every one a voice".
What are typewriters?
Despite these disappearing early in the novel, their presence is still felt in narrator's language, with researchers "scattering like" them.
What are birds?
Representing the flow of time, in which memories are discarded, this natural wonder never freezes and never stands still.
What is a river?
R tells the narrator that when she lost this, she "lost [her] ability to make sense of [her]self"
What is her voice?
Finish the quote: “a heart has no shape, no limits. That’s why ..."
"you can put almost anything in it, why it can hold so much."
What is a clocktower?
The narrator thought she could hear the sound of her "memory burning" the night that these objects disappear.
What are books?
A symbol of state oppression, the town lives in the shadow of this natural wonder.
What is a mountain?
The Memory Police are described as creating this in a "precise manner".
What is chaos?
Finish the quote: “It’s their photographs that will disappear, not ..."
"...my mother and father"
The man who takes away the protagonist's voice and agency.
Who is her typing instructor?
This navigational guide is something that is "terrible to lose"
What is a compass?
Ogawa argues that all totalitarian regimes will eventually end. In a futile attempt to stop their own fall, The Memory Police ban this means of marking time.
What is a calendar?
The Memory Police's power comes from fear and performance, as can be seen by their headquarters being set here.
What is an old theatre?
Finish the quote: “as things got thinner, more full of holes, ..."
"our hearts got thinner too, diluted perhaps"
The protagonist compares losing her voice to this.
what is "having one's body go to pieces"?
During a search by the Memory Police, the narrator thinks of this object to "keep [her]self from screaming".
What is the music box?
This symbol represents the old man. The narrator watches it to remind her of "how lucky" she is.
What is the sinking boat?
When The Memory Police search her father's study, the narrator believes that “each activity seemed to have some hidden meaning, which made the process all the [this]".
What is "more oppressive".
Finish the quote: "and yet this silence made me..."
"...all the more conscious of his existence."
This person knocks on the door, offering the protagonist her "last chance of escape".
Who is a new student?
Representing the islanders' usefulness and agency, or even the absurd levels of compliance, one of the last things to disappear in the novel are these.
What are right arms?