after the quake

Walls and boundaries form a prominent motif in the stories and often symbolize alienation from society, the family, and/or the self. By passing through these boundaries, characters embark on The Journey Into the Unconscious. In “ufo in kushiro,” Komura’s wife is glued to television reports of the Kobe earthquake and gradually becomes more distant from her husband. The narrator describes how a “stone wall of silence surround[s] her” (3). Rather than draw the couple closer, the national tragedy highlights how little the two communicate with each other. The stone wall is revealed to be a barrier between the two that existed before the earthquake, as his wife had a habit of leaving home unplanned. Komura had become accustomed to this wall and never objected to her frequent disappearances, suggesting a relationship lacking in emotional intimacy and support.

Another significant wall appears in “all god’s children can dance.” One of the barriers that Yoshiya must cross is the “high concrete wall” with “its dense crown of barbed wire that seem[s] to defy the rest of the world” (53). The wall represents a guarded boundary that prevents access to the unconscious, and the crown of barbed wire alludes to Christian

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