A Pale View of Hills

Despite being the story’s narrator, there is surprisingly little biographical information presented about Etsuko. She is a war orphan, taken in by Ogata-san, her school director. We do not learn anything about her family, except that she lost all of her family members during the bombing of Nagasaki, as well as her love interest, Nakamura-san. The absence of these details reflects the absence of the family itself, but it is also indicative of the trauma Etsuko experienced. The lack of information is almost like a literary dissociative amnesia, as if removing those family members and memories from her narrative, Etsuko removes them from her experience.

Evidenced by Etsuko’s recollections of her first pregnancy, she was a diligent and dutiful wife to Jiro but was not in love with her first husband. She used to be a gifted violinist, but she feels unable to play after her marriage and dedicates her life to taking care of her home and waiting for her first child to be born. Through these actions, we learn that Etsuko is duty-bound to a lifestyle and tradition that many around her now find cloying, including Sachiko and her own husband, Jiro. Etsuko’s apathy and lack of autonomy throughout her time in Japan seem to preclude her decision to move to England and a more modern, Western lifestyle; yet we also learn that, even after she settles into a new country, she still holds fast to traditions of politeness and secrecy, even to the detriment of her own family.