The Memory Police

Ogawa’s narrator is clearly a woman, but her name, physical features, and age are not clear. She does mention her makeup and clothes from time to time. The flashbacks of her with her mother—who remembers everything despite the efforts of the Memory Police—help the reader understand why she helps hide her editor, R, who can also remember everything. In addition to trying to save and love those who are hunted by the police, she resists the Memory Police in her own vocation by continuing to write after novels have been forgotten.

The unnamed protagonist, as a novelist, allows Ogawa to examine the process of writing and the desires of writers. When she can’t remember enough to keep her body and voice functional, the narrator is able to leave behind the written word. Her lack of a name allows her to serve as an archetype of the writer who resists with the power of the word as well as someone whose bodily presence can be erased (unlike R, who at least gets a partial name—a partial autonomy over his individuality and body).

She consistently asks hard questions and is aware of this characteristic; for instance, she says she “was conscious that I had done nothing but ask questions since I’d arrived at the headquarters” of the Memory Police (104).