The Woman in the Dunes

Sand is a ubiquitous motif in this novel, representing flow or movement, constant erosion, and the part versus the whole. Movement itself creates sand, which then perpetuates that movement: “As long as the winds blew, the rivers flowed, and the seas stirred, sand would be born grain by grain from the earth, and like a living being it would creep everywhere. […] Gently but surely [it] invaded and destroyed the surface of the earth” (14). The comparison of sand to a living being draws a comparison between sand and humans—who have also crept across the globe, invading and destroying the earth—a consequential concept in post-war Japan, the setting of Abe’s novel. Sand can be beautiful, but the man recognizes that “the beauty of sand […] belong[s] to death. It [is] the beauty of death that [runs] through the magnificence of its ruins and its great power of destruction” (183). The sand represents a paradox for the man—it embodies the freedom he craves, but it also imprisons him and erodes his health.

The buildings, clothes, and even skin of the people living in the sand are constantly being worn away by it. The man describes the woman’s house as having its “insides […] half eaten away by tentacles of ceaselessly flowing sand” (31).