Nature
This object, representing the numbing, dehumanising power of the memory police is mentioned 96 times in the text.
What is snow?
This disappeared object connects the narrator to her father.
What are birds?
The freedom from restraint or coercion from the state.
What is negative liberty?
What are "stories"
"Despite the cold, _____________"
What is "the river did not seem to be frozen" (p45)
When the neighbours are complaining about the memory police, this natural phenomenon encourages them back indoors.
What is "an even colder wind"?
"They bloomed discreetly, as though embarrassed to have been spared"
What are flowers? (Page 49)
"There is no point in hunting for a working typewriter if there was nothing to type on". In this quote, Ogawa explores this approach to freedom.
What is the capabilities approach?
The narrator's mother hides disappeared objects inside these, one of which she gave to Prof. Innui.
What are sculptures?
"It doesn't hurt and you _________"
What is "won't even be particularly sad" (p3)
This natural phenomenon represents time, which keeps flowing no matter how cold it gets.
What is the river?
On Page 248, the narrator is told "You'll get used to it. It may be tricky at first, but that's been true of the other disappearances as well"
What are left legs?
The islanders never knowing when or if they're being watched is an example of this type of state control.
What is panopticism?
"If I go on __________, will those memories protect me?"
What is "writing stories" (p177)
"When you lost your voice, ______________"
What is "you lost the ability to make sense of yourself" (p132)
The wind brought the winter clouds from beyond this geographic phenomenon, that represents imperial Japan.
What is a mountain?
"Of course, _______!" I was suddenly able to remember. "The man who lives across the street used to make them."
What is a hat? (p187)
R tells the narrator to keep writing after novels disappeared. "But that's impossible", she replies, demonstrating bad faith through this lens of freedom.
What is existential freedom?
The narrator uses her memory of this present to The Old Man to stop herself from screaming.
What is the music box?
"But as things got thinner, more full of holes, __________"
This natural phenomenon shatters the ferry.
What is a tsunami?
"They may be nothing more than scraps of paper, but they capture something profound"
What are photographs? (Page 94)
The freedom to pursue the life you want is otherwise known as this type of liberty.
What is positive liberty?
This musical instrument was found hidden in one of the mother's sculptures.
What is a harmonica?
What is "never again able to make the air tremble" (130)