Strange Pictures

Throughout the novel, parents and parental figures struggle with their love for the children they are meant to guide and protect. The story shows that the intense love parents have for their children is not always as selfless as it appears to be and (even when it is) can be violent in its strength.

As the center point that ties the various parts of the story together, Naomi’s maternal instinct is the most prominent example of this theme. Naomi clearly loves both Haruto and Yuta. Her son and grandson occupy most of her thoughts and motivate many of her actions. This love is particularly important to her because she did not feel that her own mother genuinely loved her, and she intends to use her motherhood as a way to erase this legacy. This same fact, however, introduces a selfish note to Naomi’s maternal feelings, as well as an element of rage—the same rage that led her to kill her mother. This explains why, when her daughter-in-law becomes pregnant, Naomi feels a deep jealousy, thinking “I want to be a mother forever. I never want to lose the right to that name, Mother” (221). This jealousy eventually spills over into violence as Naomi plots her daughter-in-law’s death, reinforcing the ambivalence of Naomi’s feelings.

Indeed, the irony is that all of Naomi’s worrying and her efforts to protect Haruto and Yuta lead to terrible consequences for her children. Near the end of the novel, she finally recognizes that her deep love for Haruto often prevented her from seeing what was actually in his best interest: “She had surely loved Haruto more than anyone, done more for him than anyone, but in doing so she had stood in the way of his independence. It was as if his umbilical cord had never been cut” (223). Her devotion to the idea of herself as a mother and her all-consuming love for Haruto and Yuta lead to several murders, as well as Haruto’s death by suicide and Yuta’s placement in an orphanage.

The novel suggests that these contradictions are inherent to parenthood. Naomi points out that “Giving birth is not some beautiful sacred rite, as so many men seem to imagine. It is hours of tears and screaming, enduring pain and suffering with death always near, all to force a baby from your body” (192). Here, Naomi depicts giving birth as a brutal and traumatic experience; that mothers endure it for their children’s benefit merely further intertwines violence and selfless love. This ambivalent experience continues as the child grows older. Naomi argues bitterly with her husband about how to raise Haruto and is terrified at the thought of losing custody in a divorce. She snaps at Yuta when he draws on the linoleum and then struggles to collect herself enough to be gentle with him. She worries about the money it takes to raise children. She becomes furious with Yuta’s teacher when the woman mistakenly accuses her of child abuse and is overwhelmed with terror when the child temporarily goes missing. Parenting is thus as much a source of anxiety and anger as it is joy.

The idea that an institution like parenthood—one that society considers not only “normal” but laudable—might have a hidden dark side is typical of Japanese horror, which often emphasizes the hidden psychological terror that can lurk within ordinary domestic scenes. Toward the end of the story, Kumai recalls an incident in which his usually cheerful mother “lost her mind” when another child bullied Kumai (221). He believes that she was seconds from assaulting the other child’s father, and he wonders “what made his own mother and Naomi different?” (221). In the end, he is forced to realize that there is not much—if anything at all—separating a parent like Naomi from any other parent in the world. The mingled fear, pain, and love that define parenthood can spill over into violence at any moment, the novel suggests.