If Cats Disappeared From The World

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary: “Saturday: If I Disappeared From the World”

The postman now believes that it’s possible to choose whether you are happy or unhappy, just by changing your way of seeing things. He wakes up with Cabbage beside him and realizes that since cats have not disappeared, he is going to disappear instead. He’s come to terms with the inevitability of his death. Although it was possible for him to get rid of other things, he couldn’t bear to get rid of cats.

The previous night, to Aloha’s surprise and chagrin, the postman refused to make cats disappear. Aloha said that the postman’s refusal meant that Aloha had once more lost to God; the past week was like the biblical story of the Forbidden Fruit—a bet between God and the Devil. Aloha appeared as a doppelganger of the postman because the Devil has no set form. Instead, his appearance reflects the postman’s regrets—a version of the postman that could have been but never was. The postman then accepted that he would die with such regrets, and was now just happy to have lived at all. Aloha laughed: Only on the brink of death had the postman finally learned to value the important parts of life. Aloha informed the postman that he would indeed die soon, although he wouldn’t know exactly when. Aloha then said farewell and advised the postman to make sure that the last thing he does is done with passion.

On Saturday, the postman spends the day getting his affairs in order, cleaning his apartment, and organizing his funeral at the local funeral home. At lunch time, he feeds Cabbage a fresh fish, much to the cat’s satisfaction. He clears out his possessions and finds a box that contains treasures from his childhood, including a stamp collection that inspired him to become a postman. The stamps were gifts from his father, brought back whenever his father travelled. His father’s choice of stamps gave the postman a window into his father’s life, thoughts, and experiences, so that he was able to understand his father. Again, the postman thinks of all the mundane objects that make up the world, and everything he could have lost if he’d continued making deals with the Devil. He imagines seeing the stamps floating and swirling before him while dying, happy in that moment. He realizes suddenly that he needs to write a letter to his father with everything he never said.

The postman sits at his desk and writes the letter that is this novel. He’s decided to leave Cabbage to his father. When Cabbage was found, the postman was initially against adopting him for fear that losing another cat could break his mother’s heart anew. His father, however, was simply happy to see his wife happy—he named Cabbage for his resemblance to their previous cat Lettuce.

Chapter 8 Summary: “Sunday: Goodbye World”

The postman finishes writing the letter to his father and puts on it a stamp from his collection featuring a sleeping cat. It would be a fitting end for him to post the letter, but this doesn’t feel quite right. He remembers that his father left out the box of stamps as an olive branch on the day the postman left home. The postman feels fondness for his father, finally able to acknowledge his good qualities. He gets dressed in his postal worker uniform, noting how much he resembles his father. He puts Cabbage in the basket of his bicycle and goes to visit his father and deliver the letter in person.

Chapters 7-8 Analysis

The final two chapters of the novel provide a short denouement following the climax. These chapters show the extent to which the postman’s outlook has changed in the week since his diagnosis. The penultimate chapter also contextualizes the novel as a letter to the postman’s estranged father, providing neat closure to the hinted explanations in the novel’s introduction. The narration briefly switches into the present tense as the postman describes the act of writing the letter, reinforcing the link between narration and action and creating a sense of immediacy to the novel’s close.

The important symbol of the postman’s stamp collection represents the relationship between father and son. Both men have been identified with mundane items referenced in the novel: The father is a watch and clock maker, whose livelihood is affected by his son’s decision to get rid of clocks. The postman, meanwhile, chose his profession based on the stamps he used to receive from his father’s travels. These links illustrate the novel’s interest in the meaning and interconnectedness of the animate and inanimate things that make up life. By refusing to consider his father’s relationship to clocks when deciding to allow them to disappear, the postman rejected the possibility of reconciliation. However, after recapturing the memory of seeing his father through the lens of the stamps, the postman realizes the importance of Valuing Objects, Relationships, and the Everyday. The change in the postman’s thinking heralds a renewal of the former closeness they shared during his childhood.

The ending of If Cats Disappeared from the World is bittersweet. The postman has not been cured of his illness, and he has not received any definitive answers about the nature of the universe and his place in it, or why he was chosen by Aloha as the recipient of his deal. Furthermore, there is a significant element of uncertainty—Aloha warns the postman that he will die at any moment, and the postman has yet to meet with his father and achieve his desired reconciliation, which means these events may happen in the wrong order. However the novel’s final scene is overwhelmingly hopeful. The momentum of the postman’s cycling echoes his sense of purpose; his surveying the wide view from the top of the hill echoes his broadened perspective and new expansive understanding of the world. The imagery of bright weather cements the tone of hope and optimism, which reinforces the novel’s central message that death is not a foe to be fended off, but rather a part of existence that contributes meaning to life.

By the novel’s close, the postman has achieved peaceful acceptance akin to the Buddhist concept of enlightenment and the Shinto ideal of spiritual and mental purity. This is the final stage in his character development, and an important element in Genki Kawamura’s exploration of Coming to Terms with Death. The postman spends the final scenes of the novel reveling in the consequent clarity of mind and purpose, neatly concluding by Juxtaposing Gain and Loss.