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39 pages 1 hour read

Kazuo Ishiguro

A Pale View of Hills

Kazuo IshiguroFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982

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Part 1, Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Chapter 1 Summary

At the outset of A Pale View of Hills, the narrator, Etsuko, recounts a recent visit from her younger daughter, Niki. When attempting to name her, Etsuko wanted something modern, while her new husband, an Englishman, wanted to preserve her Japanese heritage. They settled on the name Niki, which her husband believed had “some vague echo of the East about it” (9). Niki is visiting Etsuko because her older daughter and Niki’s half-sister, Keiko, recently committed suicide by hanging herself. Niki did not attend the funeral because of the resentment she feels for Keiko, who did not attend Niki’s father’s funeral.

During Niki’s visit, Etsuko reflects on her memories of another woman, Sachiko, who she knew for a short time many years ago in Nagasaki. At that time, Etsuko lives in a new condo development on the outskirts of Nagasaki with her first husband, Jiro, who is Japanese.

Etsuko is halfway through her first pregnancy with Keiko when Sachiko and her daughter, Mariko, move into an old, dilapidated cottage across from Etsuko’s housing development. The cottage is visible from Etsuko’s apartment, and she often observes it from her window. Etsuko notices that Mariko is frequently left unsupervised and does not attend school. When she brings this to Sachiko’s attention, the older woman seems unconcerned and permits Etsuko to take care of Mariko, if she so desires. The narrator’s attempts to befriend the girl, however, are unsuccessful. During one of their brief exchanges, Mariko mentions a mysterious woman who lives across the river in the woods and visits her at night.

Sachiko has financial problems and needs employment. One day she asks Etsuko to recommend her to an acquaintance, Mrs. Fujiwara, who is a noodle shop owner.

Chapter 2 Summary

Etsuko goes to visit Mrs. Fujiwara to check on Sachiko, who is now employed by the noodle shop owner. Mariko enters the shop, and Etsuko learns that she was rude to one of the noodle shop’s customers. When Sachiko attempts to reprimand her, Mariko tells her that the mysterious woman visited her at night again and wanted to take Mariko away to her house on the other side of the river. Hearing this, Sachiko attempts to silence the girl and ushers her inside.

Etsuko’s father-in-law, Ogata-san, arrives for a visit. He used to be a teacher and a school director. His wife, Keiko, is dead.

One morning, Ogata-san mentions reading an article written by one of Jiro’s school friends; the article claims he was a bad teacher and should have been fired after the war. The older man feels hurt by these claims because the writer used to visit Jiro at their home, and his wife, Keiko, took good care of the boy.

One evening, Sachiko comes to Etsuko’s house in search of Mariko. Etsuko becomes concerned and leaves to look for Mariko, too. While walking around, Sachiko confides that she will be leaving for America soon. Since they cannot locate the girl anywhere, the two women decide to go search on the other side of the river. After crossing the bridge, they immediately see a shape lying on the shore, and Sachiko recognizes her daughter.

Chapter 3 Summary

Mariko lies in the fetal position on her side and seems catatonic. When the two women reach her, they see that the girl is bleeding from a small cut on the inside of her thigh. They take her back to the cottage, where Sachiko cleans her up. Etsuko remembers Mariko’s words and questions Sachiko about the girl’s insistence that a mysterious woman visits her from across the river. Sachiko confides that it is probably a vision of a woman Mariko knew in Tokyo who is now dead.

Sachiko tells Etsuko more about her plans to immigrate to America with her lover, Frank. She already knows some English because, as a little girl, she dreamed of becoming a businesswoman and studied English. However, her husband, a strict and patriotic man, forbade her to continue her studies when the relations between Japan and America deteriorate. Sachiko claims that the move to America is the best thing for Mariko. She explains they moved around quite a bit after her husband’s death, but while living with a relative of her husband’s, Mariko went to a good school and even had a private tutor to help her catch up with her studies.

The narrative returns to the present day and Niki’s visit. Etsuko and Niki go into the nearby village. While having tea, Etsuko observes a little girl playing on the swings. While they converse, Niki tells her mother she does not want children.

On the way back to Etsuko’s country house, the two meet a neighbor who confuses Niki for Keiko. When she asks repeatedly about Keiko, Etsuko pretends her older daughter still lives in Manchester.

Through their conversation and Etsuko’s recollections, the reader gradually learns that, prior to her death, Keiko isolated herself from her family; she stayed in her room and never went outside. She maintained this type of isolated existence even after moving away to Manchester. After she committed suicide, no one found her body for several days.

Chapter 4 Summary

One day in Nagasaki, Ogata-san brings down a violin and attempts to play it. As they talk, it becomes clear that Etsuko used to play the violin very well, but she no longer plays. Over the course of their conversation, the reader also learns that Ogata-san took in Etsuko as an adolescent after her own family died in the bombing of Nagasaki.

While Ogata-san and Jiro play chess one evening, two of Jiro’s colleagues visit. They are slightly intoxicated and begin gossiping about their other colleagues. The two colleagues call Jiro “Pharaoh” because he makes his underlings work hard while he himself reads the paper (62). One of the men reveals that he and his wife voted for different politicians, and he tried to force her to vote the same way as him without success.

After the guests leave, Jiro proves himself to be both a careless husband, leaving crumbs on the floor, and an indifferent son, preferring to read the newspaper to playing chess with his father, despite Ogata-san’s repeated requests. Ogata-san then begins criticizing democracy, which he sees as an excuse for people to behave selfishly and not fulfill their duty. According to him, everyone should put duty first, and for women, that means loyalty to the household. Voting for a different political party goes against such a worldview. Ogata-san also expresses his disappointment in the modern overhaul of the old education system. According to him, the Americans impose new cultural norms without first understanding Japanese culture, leading to the destruction of the traditional way of life. Jiro does not believe that all these innovations are bad; he remembers memorizing his textbooks verbatim, which claimed the gods created Japan, and it was superior to all other nations. Ogata-san rebuts that it is not so much about the content as their values and instilling the proper attitude toward the fatherland.

Chapter 5 Summary

Sachiko visits Etsuko and shares that her lover, Frank, disappeared without leaving any note. Sachiko plans to go to the city center to look for him in his habitual haunts, and she asks Etsuko to look after Mariko. Sachiko also asks for a loan, since Etsuko mentioned she has some savings of her own.

As they talk, Sachiko describes Frank as tall and balding. She also finally shares the story of the mysterious woman Mariko claims to see on the other side of the river. When they still lived in Tokyo, Mariko and Sachiko came across a thin young woman kneeling by a canal with her hands under the water. The woman turned around and brought her hands out of the water, revealing that she was holding a baby. Later, she committed suicide by cutting her throat. Since then, Mariko has frequently mentioned visits from the young woman they say committing infanticide by the river.

Etsuko watches over Mariko while Sachiko looks for Frank. Mariko confides that the local children killed one of her kittens. Etsuko reprimands Mariko for her bad behavior, bur Mariko claims the other children were badmouthing her mother. Mariko then pretends to eat a spider, and while Etsuko is distracted, the girl slips out of the cottage.

Chapter 6 Summary

Etsuko goes after Mariko and looks for her along the river bank. It is summer, and Etsuko is now in the advanced stages of pregnancy. As she walks through the grass, Etsuko realizes one of her feet is tangled in a muddy rope. Just as she untangles herself, Etsuko sees Mariko sitting in the grass under a willow tree. The girl seems obsessed with the rope and keeps asking Etsuko about it. Etsuko, in turn, believes Mariko is making a strange face and repeatedly asks her about it. Eventually, the little girl runs back to the cottage.

When Etsuko gets back to the house, Sachiko is there fighting with her daughter. The older woman is rough with Mariko and slaps her on her thighs. Mariko runs out.

Sachiko tells Etsuko she found Frank drinking with a saloon girl. Sachiko admits this is not his first offense; in the past, he spent the money Sachiko saved working as a hotel maid. After confronting her lover, the single mother decides she no longer wants to immigrate to America. She plans to write to her husband’s relative to ask him to take her and Etsuko back. Throughout the conversation, Sachiko claims her primary concern is Mariko’s well-being, and she will do what is best for her daughter. However, she seems unconcerned that the girl is alone outside in the middle of the night.

The narrative returns to modern-day England. Niki says that her London friends are impressed by Etsuko’s decision to immigrate, and they all admire her for what they perceive as her courage. The narrator feels such sentiments to be presumptuous because Niki and her friends could never fully understand Etsuko’s past. It turns out she left Japan when Keiko was seven years old.

Etsuko muses that Niki and Keiko are very similar in their temperament and insistence on privacy, but while Niki seems to be adapting to life as an adult, Keiko was unable to overcome her unhappiness. Etsuko’s second husband wanted to believe that it was simply Keiko’s nature, but Etsuko is not so sure.

Etsuko tells Niki about a recurring dream she has of the little girl they saw playing on the swing in the village. However, in her last dream, the child turns out to be a different girl who is not actually on a swing.

Part 1, Chapters 1-6 Analysis

Part 1 of A Pale View of Hills gradually builds the character of Etsuko through conversations and small details. While Etsuko might believe she is a good person, some of her words and actions make it difficult to sympathize with her as a character and as a narrator. Of particular concern is her insistence to Mariko, despite the child’s claims otherwise, that nothing is awry and everyone is nice, disregarding the perspectives of what is clearly a traumatized child. Even as Mariko attempts to convey and seek help for her trauma, like when she discusses the mysterious woman or the other children’s cruelty, Etsuko refuses to consider her words seriously and negates everything Mariko says. While it is possible Mariko is making things up or just complaining, the more she speaks about these concerns, and the more Etsuko ignores them, the more distrustful the reader becomes of the narrator, Etsuko. Regardless of whether the complaints are imaginary, they are Mariko’s attempt to communicate and seek help; dismissing them is tantamount to silencing and isolating the girl.

Although Etsuko claims to have good intentions for Mariko, as the story progresses, we learn that she is, in fact, enabling the mistreatment of Mariko by Sachiko. The narrator does not seem to feel any real affection or concern for the girl herself, only for the idea of a child left unsupervised. She implies several times that she is unable to connect to Mariko, which makes her feel inadequate. Mariko also engenders a feeling of foreboding in Etsuko. Her sporadic attempts to babysit Mariko seem to be for her own benefit, rather than motivated by genuine affection or a desire to help.

Etsuko’s lack of curiosity about Sachiko’s personal life and her relationship to Frank is also concerning. She lends an obligatory hand in helping Sachiko secure a job, but when it comes to offering personal connection or advice, she remains close-lipped. Even when it becomes evident to the reader that Sachiko’s relationship with Frank is problematic and demands some type of intervention, Etsuko does not step in or even provide an opinion. While her decision not to pry is, in part, an expression of Japanese politeness, her manners seem to trump moral obligations. Even if Etsuko feels no empathy for Sachiko’s struggles as a single mother, the signs of parental neglect and abandonment should prompt her to try and help Mariko. One the one hand, perhaps Etsuko feels helpless and does not believe she has the right or the power to intervene in Sachiko’s life. Alternatively, since openly discussing domestic abuse and becoming involved in someone else’s problems is frowned upon, Etsuko does not want to upset her own life by inviting censure and remains silent.

An important narrative aspect introduced at the outset of the novel is the characters’ tendency to repeat themselves. For example, Sachiko says repeatedly that Etsuko is kind and will make a good mother (14-15). Etsuko and Mrs. Fujiwara do the same, drawing attention to the idea as if in hope that repeating the phrase will make it true. Paradoxically, the repetitions achieve the opposite effect: The reader begins questioning the validity of these statements.

The verbal repetition is part of a larger theme of mirroring present throughout the novel. The narrative and characters frequently parallel or circle back on themselves, lending the novel some of its mystery and ambiguity. For example, in Part 1 of the novel, the reader may begin to recognize the parallels between Keiko and Mariko. Mariko, who is close to the age Keiko was when she immigrated, is afraid of the rope tangled around Etsuko’s feet, and it is rope that eventually kills Keiko. The circuitous, reflective nature of the characters and Etsuko’s narrative leads the reader to hazy assumptions, but never to any conclusions.

Another stylistic particularity is the way in which conversations are often out of sync. For example, when Etsuko and Mariko speak in Chapter 5, although they are speaking to each other, the impression created is that they are having two separate, unconnected monologues. Each character continues voicing their own thoughts and does not listen or respond to what the other says. This creates the impression of total disconnect or communication failure.

Etsuko’s narration introduces a host of significant themes throughout Part 1. The character of Ogata-san, for example, presents a caricature of old-world Japan that is intentionally, if reluctantly, being amputated from a post-war Japan. His perspectives on education and gender roles feel outdated and out of sync with a new generation, and even his son cannot sympathize with Ogata-san’s perspectives. Ogata-san’s character feels particularly jarring in contrast with the parallel narrative of modern-day England and the life that Etsuko, his adoptive daughter, will one day lead.

Another interesting theme presented in Part 1 is that of female relationships, particularly between mothers and daughters. Etsuko’s relationship with her daughters is one fraught with miscommunication and assumption. With Keiko, communication between mother and daughter ceased completely. With Niki, Etsuko’s passive presumptions about her daughter’s life communicate to the reader that her relationship with her surviving daughter is not genuine. Etsuko’s exchanges with Mariko are a distilled and amplified example of her relationships with her daughters, offering some insight into how she likely mothered her own children and how that led to their trauma and actions as adults. 

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