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Book 3, Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pachinko, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Family
Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Summary
Analysis
On the way home, Solomon and Hana meet for the first time at Etsuko’s restaurant, and Solomon invites Hana to his birthday party. When Hana comments on the luxurious birthday preparations, Etsuko points out that Solomon hasn’t had an easy life, having gotten fingerprinted like a criminal on his birthday. Hana replies that nobody is innocent.
Solomon and Hana begin to forge a fateful friendship. Hana’s conviction that nobody is innocent will be a recurrent theme in her life and her conversations with Solomon later on.
Themes
Etsuko and Hana have an argument. Etsuko tells Hana about the scheduled abortion and says that Hana shouldn’t be a mother. Hana replies that Etsuko hasn’t even tried to be a mother. Etsuko thinks that even if she’s failed, being a mother is what will always define her. She points out that she’s turned down marriage to Mozasu so that she wouldn’t make things worse for Hana and her brothers. Hana laughs at this supposed “sacrifice,” saying Etsuko only turned him down out of fear of judgment. Etsuko thinks that Hana is right; she doesn’t want to be seen as a yakuza wife. Back at Etsuko’s apartment, the two reconcile somewhat, and Etsuko says she will let Hana stay with her from now on.
As for other women in the story, motherhood is a painful, fraught subject for Etsuko. In her own way, she’s tried to do what she thinks best for her children—distancing herself so as not to cause them further shame—but she fears Hana is right that she is also self-serving; marrying a pachinko millionaire like Mozasu would just confirm her tainted status in the eyes of most Japanese.
Themes
