Comparing The Housekeeper And The Professor By Yōko Ogawa

In the novel The HouseKeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa is a story about a housekeeper being assigned to a professor who’s memory only last for eighty minutes because he was in an accident. However all the memory before the accident will remain intact, which his knowledge of math. Overall, the housekeeper and her son learns about mathematic and it’s relevance. The novel help the reader understand that mathematics isn’t just a subject in school, where we are forced to learn. Mathematics is everywhere in the world and without math the world would be the same. An example to the idea that mathematics is everywhere around the world and not a subject in school. “Solving a problem for which you know there’s an answer is like climbing a mountain

“I needed this eternal truth [...] I needed the sense that this invisible world was somehow propping up the visible one, that this one, true line extended infinitely, without width or area, confidently piercing through the shadows. Somehow, this line would help me find peace.” (Yōko Ogawa). This quote explains that the professor’s connection through the world math, math help him understand everything else. This quote teaches me as a reader that sometimes math gives people peace when understanding the world. Also that other people have different way of making connections, math is peace for and example the professor and his connection to the world. This quote is mathematically significant because, the professor connects the universe has a one real value and that value is connected to everything. The value of one may seem like a small number, however in a unknown universe the value of one is everything known. Another example is that the professor uses visible one as a connection to the world, this relates how everything started with the number one. Cells increase exponentially, one cells turns to two cells, then four cells, eight, sixteen, thirty six, and more increasingly. This important to the Professor because he is teaching the housekeeper on how he makes connection in the world and how he understands the unknown universe. In this case, the Professor uses mathematics as an understanding of life,