The Buddha in the Attic

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

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Symbols & Motifs

The Buddha in the Attic

The Buddha in the attic—the symbol that gives Otsuka’s novel its name—appears fleetingly in the penultimate chapter. Between accounts of women leaving behind purses and bags of rice as they leave for the internment camp, Otsuka describes how “Haruko left a tiny brass Buddha up high, in a corner of the attic, where he is still laughing to this day” (109). By slotting the Buddha in between essentials, the novel gives the impression that despite being a symbol of a divinity, the statue is also an everyday object. This fits in with earlier ideas in the novel, as many of the women brought miniature Buddha statues with them from Japan and positioned them on shrines they made from tomato crates. The portable scale of the Buddha statue and the makeshift, utilitarian nature of the tomato-crate shrine show how the women have had to find versatile ways of continuing their families’ traditions in a country where Buddhism is not prevalent.

The particular Buddha that Haruko left in the attic is also a sign of defiance and resilience. Whereas many of her contemporaries burned the Japanese artifacts that gave them away as “un-American,” Haruko positioned the miniature laughing Buddha in the attic, where he would remain undisturbed by the next inhabitants of the house and endure the test of time. Haruko thus refuses the erasure of Japanese culture that the evacuation both encourages and perpetrates; she insists that this marker of her identity will remain. Additionally, the laughing Buddha in particular represents good luck and abundance; thus, Haruko communicates that she leaves with no hard feelings or ill will towards those who will inhabit the house after her. Finally, the relinquishment of her Buddha statue, a worldly object, also shows Haruko’s alignment with the Buddhist maxim that “[the women’s] mothers had always told [them]”—namely, that “one must not get too attached to the things of this world” (101). In leaving the lucky token behind, Haruko is divorcing herself from attachment to worldly prosperity and good fortune and entrusting herself to whatever fate has in store for her.

The White Wedding Kimono

The white wedding kimono, or shiromuku as it is known in Japanese, is a symbol throughout the novel and an object that accompanies the women from their boat journey to their departure for the internment camps, when they set fire to their bridal garments “out of doors, in [their] apple orchards, in the furrows between the trees” (86). The “white silk kimono” worn on the women’s wedding nights is of a spotless color and fine fabric that encapsulates the naive women’s hopes for their marriage and future. It also covers their bodies in a fabric that symbolizes the pristine virginal state that the matchmakers promised the women’s future husbands. However, when the husbands and wives meet and reality hits, some of the bridegrooms find that their new wives are not as pure as the kimono suggests, while the most inexperienced brides find themselves rudely and terrifyingly handled: “[T]hey took us with our white silk kimonos twisted up high over our heads and we were sure we were about to die. I thought I was being smothered” (19). In a brusque, perfunctory sex-act, the men displace all of the sacred and romantic notions the kimono promises. The destruction of the kimono also corresponds to the tearing of the hymen: a membrane commonly associated with virginity since intercourse can rupture it.

Between the wedding night and the moment when the women burn their kimonos in a performance of American patriotism, the wedding kimonos are conspicuous by their absence. Once the women know that what waits for them in America is a life of utilitarian labor, they “fold[] up [their] kimonos and put them away in [their] trunks” (53). The kimonos’ return to the trunks the women brought from Japan symbolizes a journey to a future that never happened.

Labor

Labor is a consistent motif throughout the novel. Traveling to America, the women imagine that they have escaped hard labor in the rice paddies and will soon be leading lives of leisure. However, this could not be further from the truth, as the women must join their husbands in devoting their lives to the profits of white Americans, while still attending to the labor their husbands demand of them: homemaking, sex, and childrearing. The women, who live their lives in service to others, have barely a moment to themselves and lead a utilitarian existence, losing themselves in the process of their own efficiency. They figure out how to give birth with minimum inconvenience to their husbands and employers, and they nurse their babies in accordance with the rhythms of work—for example, “every time [they] finish[] hoeing a row of beans” (60). Still, the women resist capitalism’s efforts to erase their identity by remembering their mothers in Japan, seeking to follow their rituals of ancestor worship and to impart their wisdom to their children. The first-person plural voice of the novel also implies that by remaining witnesses to each other’s lives, the women keep track of each other’s particularities. This prevents them from becoming interchangeable cogs in a wheel.

However, when the women leave for the internment camps, their white bosses waste no time in employing people of other ethnicities to fill their roles and perform the labor that white people will not do for themselves. For example, clients of a former Japanese laundry now “take their plunge and drop off their laundry with the Chinese […] even though their linens might not come back perfectly pressed” (124). Here, Otsuka implies that the Japanese women’s work and presence has a value that cannot easily be replaced.