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Book 3, Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Reality and Subjective Experience
Free Will
Desire and Irrationality
The Personal Impact of War
Social Alienation
Summary
Analysis
Nutmeg and Toru eat dinner together. During dinner, Nutmeg begins recounting harrowing tales from her childhood during the final stages of World War II in 1945. Fleeing from Manchukuo as the Americans gained the upper hand in the war and Okinawa fell, Nutmeg found herself on a boat, embarking on a perilous journey. At one point, a submarine stopped her ship for inspection, which reminds her of yet another harrowing recollection.
Like Mamiya, war directly affected Nutmeg's life, though she was just a child at the time. Okinawa surrendered on June 22, 1945, just a few months before the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nutmeg's memories of this time are scattered but visceral; she associates this time in her life with fear.
Themes
In this second recollection, Nutmeg describes Japanese soldiers traversing a zoo in Manchukuo, executing animals before the impending Soviet takeover. These soldiers were supposed to use poison to kill the animals in order to preserve bullets, but the poison never arrived. With the zoo running out of food, the carnivorous creatures would soon turn their hunger toward humans. As such, the soldiers felt the need to act.
Here, Nutmeg describes a surreal scene that, while related to the war, is not directly related to war. Rather, the war caused this unintended tragedy, which resulted in even more needless suffering. At this point, it is not clear why Nutmeg was present at this zoo, though the memory clearly impacted her.
Themes
In Nutmeg’s memory, the soldiers start shooting the most dangerous animals, beginning with the tigers. After shooting at the tigers, a young soldier is sent into the enclosure to ensure their demise. The sight of the dead tigers profoundly disturbs the young man. As he looks at their corpses, he hears a unique chirping sound emanating from the top of an elm tree, which resembles a winding spring.
The winding spring chirp once again brings the wind-up bird to the forefront of the narrative. At this point, Kumiko, Toru, Nutmeg, and Cinnamon have described it, though none of them have seen it firsthand. As always, the wind-up bird represents control from a higher power, which is especially troubling given the tragic nature of this scene.
Themes
As Nutmeg concludes her story, she acknowledges that the memory feels almost unreal. However, she is confident it really happened. She explains that the reason she was there in the first place was because her father had been a veterinarian in Manchuria. He remained in Manchuria even after it became a living hell, leading Nutmeg to assume he died there.
Nutmeg's story illustrates an important point about surreality in this story. Although many events are often surreal, that does not necessarily imply that they are unreal. After all, those who experience war often describe it as surreal.
Themes
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Nutmeg continues her story of the zoo massacre. The massacre ends with the Chinese assuming control of the killings. They receive the meat as compensation, which is valuable during the rationed wartime. Nutmeg’s father, left with the carcasses, contemplates the meaning of life beneath a tree, realizing that individual choices hold little significance when compared to the winds of fate.
Nutmeg's father finds himself in extreme circumstances, which recall the stories Mamiya and Mr. Honda told Toru. Although Nutmeg's father does not deny the existence of free will, he does deny the individual's importance during such large-scale chaos and horror.
Themes
Over the following weeks, Nutmeg and Toru continue having regular dinner meetings. Every time they meet, they engage in open conversations about their lives. For the most part, Toru talks about the complexities of his relationship with Kumiko. After hearing Toru’s story, Nutmeg compares his situation with The Magic Flute, an opera where a princess needs rescuing from a mysterious realm.
The Magic Flute is an opera by Mozart, which is fantastical in nature. The fact that Nutmeg compares it to Toru's life further suggests the surreal elements that have taken over his reality. Additionally, the conversations between Nutmeg and Toru represent attempts to overcome their social isolation. In this way, Nutmeg has replaced May, Kumiko, and the Kanos.
Themes
At one dinner, Nutmeg returns to talking about her transport ship. She recalls sleeping deeply as the American Navy prepared to sink the vessel. However, an inexplicable shift in energy occurred, and the U.S. submarine vanished without firing a single shot. Later, the passengers realized that the Americans must have received a direct order not to engage unless provoked, as a Japanese surrender was imminent. Nutmeg bases her recollections of this day on her mother’s accounts. All her stories from this period of her life are things she barely remembers, so she has to use her mother’s words to fill in the gaps.
Again, though chance and divine intervention are not the same things, sometimes they appear as though they are. After all, nothing but those two possibilities can explain what happened in Nutmeg's childhood, and without one of them, Nutmeg would not be alive. Even though she hardly remembers these experiences, they profoundly impacted her life and, as will soon be apparent, Cinnamon's life as well.
Themes
