In this passage, Julie Otsuka uses the rhetorical device of metaphor to contrast the material nature of the Mother’s key with the sacredness of fading memories. By contorting the gears and mechanisms of a lock, the key provides access into the Mother’s home, yet until this point its purpose is to open a source of immaterial memories. The phrase, “The key had become part of her. It was always there, a small, dark shape, dangling,” uncovers unique similarities between the key’s palpable attributes and its symbolic meaning (107). Just as the key, small and dark, clings by a single thread from the Mother’s neck so do her fuzzy, slowly fleeting memories of home. With each slow passage of time these memories grow smaller, and thoughts of returning home seem a distant hope.
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The adjoining phrase, “Visibly and sometimes invisibly, depending on the light, and what she was wearing, and even at times, it seemed, on her mood,” describes the presence and absence of the key in relation the Mother’s memories (108). Though not always visible, the key is always present. Similarly, her invisible memories are ubiquitous within her character, defining her as a woman and mother. The final portion of this passage, “Just beneath the surface of her clothes,” juxtaposes the physical and symbolic location for the key (108). Hanging from her neck, the key perhaps represents fond memories and traditions kept near to her heart, out of plain sight. Like the key, she conceals these cherished memories underneath the surface, suppressed, for fear of them being stolen or lost. In this way, Otsuka uses metaphor to reveal similarities between the key and treasured
The adjoining phrase, “Visibly and sometimes invisibly, depending on the light, and what she was wearing, and even at times, it seemed, on her mood,” describes the presence and absence of the key in relation the Mother’s memories (108). Though not always visible, the key is always present. Similarly, her invisible memories are ubiquitous within her character, defining her as a woman and mother. The final portion of this passage, “Just beneath the surface of her clothes,” juxtaposes the physical and symbolic location for the key (108). Hanging from her neck, the key perhaps represents fond memories and traditions kept near to her heart, out of plain sight. Like the key, she conceals these cherished memories underneath the surface, suppressed, for fear of them being stolen or lost. In this way, Otsuka uses metaphor to reveal similarities between the key and treasured