Boundless Sand Quotes

Boundless Sand A man alienated, trapped, and held captive at the bottom of a pit. Niki Jumpei is confined with a widow in a pit and desperately is determined to escape. To survive, they are to shovel cascading sand constantly, which turns into work that never ends. In the novel, Woman In The Dunes, the author, Kobo Abe, is able to incorporate the use of sand as a symbol of existentialism, destruction, and the work ethic of the protagonist, Niki, as he struggles with being “trapped” and alienated from society. Kobo Abe is able to use sand as a symbol of existentialism throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Niki, goes venturing to find insects and bugs as a hobby and stumbles into a village at the bottom of a sand pit. He starts

This is significant because sand is constantly flowing and moving by the wind. This relates to existentialism by the constant flow and movement. Humans are believed to drift with the path life leads them. Just like sand, humans are moving and continuously changing. Because, “the sand never rested,” (14), it’s implying how in life, it’s an endless flow and leads us in different directions. Niki Jumpei is endlessly being covered and ingesting bits of sand every day. Because he’s surrounded and enclosed in an environment with sand being present, he can never escape. Jumpei, “...could not get rid of the gritty taste. No matter how be emptied his mouth the sand was still there, “ (44). This reveals how we are all trapped as humans and enclosed in every way. Even though we try to “escape” and break free, we will always have a taste and feeling of being confined. As Niki Jumpei flees from the village, he turns back around to discover that his footprints in the sand has vanished. The author includes this to demonstrate the alienation with

The novel takes place in the bottom of a pit being completely surrounded by nothing but sand. Sand, “invaded and destroyed the surfaces of the earth,” (14), and isn't suitable for life. Early in the novel, the houses are unstable because of the rotted wood caused by the sand. This shows the destructive property of sand and how the little things can cause damage. Sand is used in a negative aspect when the woman tells the story about her husband being buried by sand by using words like, “...awful! Horrible! The sands are frightful,” (29). This shows the dangerous and fearful side of sand, which is usually seen as calming and unharmful. The author describes Niki Jumpei thoughts as, “His own viewpoint in considering the sand to be a rejection of the stationary state was not madness… a 1/8-mm. flow… a world where existence was a series of states. The beauty of sand, in other words, belonged to death. It was the beauty of death that ran through the magnificence of its ruins and its great power of destruction,” (182). Kobo Abe uses sand representing the negative and dark side of sand. A small grain can not do much damage, but when a pile of sand is present, it becomes dangerous and threatening. Being trapped in a dangerous environment represents how humans face situations in an everyday life. As Niki Jumpei tries to escape from the village, he finds himself stuck