Lindsey Lundmark and Caroline Panoff

Lundmark and Panoff 1

12 AP Literature
Ms. Smit
9 January 2015

Isolation of the Cultures:

A Synthesis of A Tale for the Time Being and What Spain Was Like
In A Tale for the Time Being, Ozeki shifts focus between an adolescent girl that lived in
California and was transferred back to her cultural home of Japan to a novelist that lives on
Vancouver Island in Canada. The audience watches as the characters battle loneliness and the
feeling of being ostracized from society because of their unique upbringings. However, the
poem, What Spain Was Like, by Neruda speaks about his homeland of Spain and how he has
an intense yearning to return there once again regardless of any ostracization. In the
corresponding novel and poem, Ozeki and Neruda both constitute the feelings of isolation and
loneliness while the speakers are surrounded by loved ones. The overall tones in both works
create a very somber and glum approach to life.
In both A Tale for the Time Being and What Spain Was Like, the speakers are reminded
of their homelands and what may have driven them away from there in the first place. Whether it
was society pushing the family away or something in their past that ostracized them from the
world around them, both Nao, Ruth, and the speaker in Nerudas poem long to succeed in the
eyes of society. The speaker in Nerudas poem desired to veer from all your confinement, your
animal isolation (Line 13) and dreamed of being included in the culture surrounding them.

Ozeki uses the same tone of overall desire for something that will not come easy and channels it
into the main characters thoughts and hopes. Nao began to write a blog about her grandmother
but soon stopped after she caught [herself] pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace
cared about what [she] thought, when really nobody gives a shit (Ozeki 25). Nao lives in the
time where more people care about drugs, alcohol and followers than something that happens in
someone elses life. This compares both Nerudas and Naos homeland by specifically stating
that because of negative aspects of society, the speakers were driven away.
Although both authors have many similarities while characterizing the speakers, they also
have many differences. In example, Neruda wants to return to the place he called his home,
Spain, while Nao and Ruth want to escape their homes because they are being shunned or bullied
by the culture around them. Neruda called Spain, of my being there is still the lost flower (Line
8), meaning that while he was still in his homeland, he thought that something was missing, a
sense of belonging; however, he still thought of Spain as a majestic flower. Nao uses the
published book from the Harajuku shop with the blank pages inside to share her stories. She felt
the need to disguise her journal in this way to protect herself from classmates [who] decided to
casually pick up my diary and post it to the Internet or something (21). Nao did not feel that she
belonged in her school, or culture, so she immediately degraded her life because she assumed
thats what her peers would think. A lack of a sense of belonging drove the speakers away from
having positive thoughts pertaining to their home lands.
Both authors use the actions and emotions of the speakers to characterize them indirectly
to the audience. Neruda introduces the speaker as a sad man to the point of weeping, in my
soul (Line 5) to the audience. Trying to fit into the status-quo that society establishes as the
accepted norm, Neruda establishes the speakers intense hopes for being accepted while

appealing to his emotion. While Ruth was watching a newscast about the destruction of the
tsunami. A man speaking to the reporter says its like a dream a horrible dream. I keep trying
to wake up. I think when I wake up, my daughter will be back (111). By showing how Ruth
reacts to the images shown on the television, Ozeki portrays a sense of humanity, to show that
she does have emotions toward the wretched idea we have learned to call society. Emotions
instill that the speakers are so desperate to fit in because they feel a cultural connection to their
homeland, although they are both being ostracized.
Although both authors use emotion to indirectly characterize the speakers of the pieces,
they do not use the same forms of diction to portray the emotions. Neruda has a very formal
diction in the poem while Ozeki uses a lot of colloquial throughout her novel. Neruda describes
his homeland as Proletarian Spain, made of petals and bullets (Line 21), instead of saying
something along the lines of Spain being hard working and scary which creates an air of
sophistication while characterizing the speaker. Nao often uses Japanese slang terms to get her
point across. In Ruths portions of the novel she translates these terms through the use of
footnotes. The footnotes clue the readers in as to what words like shibui (289) mean in
Japanese jargon. The different choices in diction characterize the speakers as sophisticated, in
Nerudas poem, and colloquial, in Ozekis novel, thus allowing the audience to have a glance
into the characters minds about being ostracized by society because of their levels in diction.
Ozeki and Neruda used similar styles to portray their speakers as lonely and isolated
people. The characters in this novel and poem can never escape the idea of isolation because the
society around them continually holds them accountable for anything culturally diverse. All three
speakers yearn to be accepted and belong to their home country. Ultimately, when someone is

raised with ideals that veer from the social norm taught to society, they are ostracized or bullied
until they give in and surrender their culture to be considered "normal".
Works Cited
Neruda, Pablo. "What Spain Was Like." Poemhunter.com. Na, n.d. Web. 08 Jan. 2015
Ozeki, Ruth L. A Tale for the Time Being. New York: Penguin Group, 2013. Print.