Summary of a Story

[Date of Submission]Summary of a Story

Introduction

The story 'Melancholy Nights in a Tokyo Cyber Café' is written by Sequoia Nagamatsu. This story deals beautifully with the brief connections that take place between Yoshiko and Akira, isolation and feelings of loneliness. Inclusive of the Sarin attacks that took place in Tokyo and an incident of group suicide in Japan, this story has many references.

Discussion

Three themes are reflected within the story; they are community, family values and loneliness. On page no. 97, the story reflects the theme of loneliness and states that to make extra money for food Yoshiko sells calligraphy prints as with her daughter who suffers from autism, Yoshiko has to manage things alone. Secondly, having grown up far away in Nagasaki, Yoshiko is aware of the fact that no one in the city has the luxury of making a friend (Brazier, 2009). On page no. 95, the story reflects the theme of family values and states that Akira never told the truth regarding his life to his ailing mother as he didn't want to place any burden on her. Similarly, on page no. 101 the story states that to save people was the main aim of Seiji as he really wanted to save his daughter and this was later realized by Akira.

On page no. 96, the story reflects the theme of community and states that people who did not want to end their life alone used to gather on a website which was explored by Akira and he found that life was too unbearable for a group of people. Similarly on page no. 102, the story state that to be lost in sadness and fear is easy as often for the wrong reasons, it brings people together.

There are some aspects of globalization being critiqued within the story and negative aspects of globalization are shown within the story. Six separable dimensions, such as, ecology, national security, finance, technology, culture and politics were offered by the argument about globalization by Thomas Friedman. To pay the necessary price and to encourage people for choosing globalization is the goal of Friedman. The concern of Friedman for the preservation of traditional cultures is closely linked with his discussion of the natural environment.

He argued that the cultural diversity and ecological that got produced by millions of years of biological and human evolution will be facing a real danger in just a few ...