The Theme Of Isolation In The Diving Pool And The Awakening

The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa explores many different themes across its three different novellas, but one prominent theme among each novella is the theme of loneliness and isolation felt by the narrator. This is especially present in “The Dormitory”, where the unnamed female narrator is completely isolated from outsiders. Her husband, who is one of the few people she connects to, is far away in Sweden, and she makes no effort to connect with people outside her one-person circle. Though we see early signs, it’s not until we see the stark contrast in the way she thinks and acts when her cousin appears that we, as well as the narrator, realize that she is not just disconnected from her world, but seems to suffer from depression.
Before the narrator’s

Instead of feeling fear, a natural reaction to a loud storm, especially when living alone, the narrator “felt quite calm” (118). With her cousin about to arrive, the drudgery of her everyday life was about to come to an end, and though she felt a “sort of peace … from being far away from everyday life,” we saw that her life lacked any sort of purpose, and one of the most significant aspects of living is to try to achieve your goals or fulfill your ambitions. When her cousin finally arrives, we see her start to find a purpose. Conversing over old stories of their childhood, comparing “versions of memorable moments,” the narrator felt herself “opening up to him” (120-121). Together they went shopping to prepare her cousin for school, combing “the city to find the best quality merchandise at the cheapest price” (121). As previously mentioned, the narrator never went out of her way to engage in activities, preferring to stay home alone than to go out and engage with the world, and “As a result of all this activity, I [the narrator] began to break out of my quiet cocoon existence” (121). Her behavior greatly differs from how she was described prior to her cousin’s arrival, another example being that she “made elaborate meals” for her cousin instead of her normal “simple breakfast” and

What is interesting is that the narrator comes to a sort of self-realization, which is due to the sudden shift in mentality she has having to go from being with her cousin to again being alone. She states that the “simple parting affected me more than I would have imagined,” and that “After he left, I returned to my usual routine: long naps, simple meals, and my patchwork” (133). Going from having a purpose, taking care of her cousin, and helping him adjust, to being back to square one, going through the motions every day, makes the narrator realize “how utterly lonely” she is (133). Even working on the patchwork, a quilt that she continued to sew every single day, has lost its meaning, as the narrator “sometimes forgot what I was making. Then I would … remind myself that I was working on a quilt or a wall hanging or whatever” (134). She is just making the patchwork for the act of sewing, and nothing more. The monotonous actions, with no end objective, show the true depths of her