If Cats Disappeared From The World

Nicknamed Aloha for his colorful Hawaiian shirts, the Devil is presented as both the literal Christian Satan and as a manifestation of the postman’s deepest regrets over the person he could have been. However, Aloha is not an antagonist; rather, he is an inciting force that pushes the postman to confront his own emotions, values, and mortality. His offer to extend the postman’s life in exchange for making objects disappear allows the author to explore the novel’s themes. In keeping with the ambiguity of the magical realism genre, it is left up to the audience to decide whether Aloha actually exists in the postman’s world; it is possible that this character is a hallucinatory manifestation of the psychological and neurological symptoms of the postman’s brain tumor.

Although Aloha is the postman’s double, his aesthetics and personality are opposite of the postman’s. Aloha is cheerful, enthusiastic, and over-familiar; he is likeable and even charming, which makes him a fitting inverse for the reserved postman. Unlike the postman, whose view of the world is self-focused and narrow, the Devil has an expansive perspective and little personal investment in the minutiae of the postman’s life. He speaks in a jarringly casual way about theological matters, embodying the Charlie Chaplin aphorism that “life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot” (4, 79), showing little remorse for his part in getting humans exiled from Eden or for the postman’s situation.

At the same time, Aloha does share some of the postman’s characteristics, implying that the postman could also have developed the same affability and ease of manner. Aloha kindly carries the postman home and makes him tea, and there is a guilelessness in his clumsy interactions with the human world, such as dressing in summer garb despite the cold, discovering a love of chocolate, and feeling embarrassed at being caught playing with Cabbage.

He accepts the postman’s eventual refusal of his bargain, even though he hints that it marks his losing a bet to God. Aloha implies that the offered deal is a sort of test for the postman similar to that of the Forbidden Fruit; the idea of a bet between Satan and God also alludes to the biblical Book of Job, in which a devout man is tested by increasingly harsh events to see whether he will maintain his faith.

The postman’s pet cat Cabbage functions as a link between the postman and his mother, who rescued and left the cat in the postman’s care following her death. The postman’s love for Cabbage illustrates the deep bond between mother and son. The postman’s decision to leave Cabbage with his father following his own death is therefore testament to the sincerity of the postman’s renewed love for and desire to reconcile with his father. The postman’s love for Cabbage is also the catalyst that sees him reject the Devil’s offer and accept the inevitability of death.

Cabbage, whom the postman calls a roommate, is an important source of companionship for the isolated man. Prior to Aloha’s interference, Cabbage is a typical cat. However, after Aloha uses magic to grant Cabbage the power of speech, Cabbage transforms into a full-fledged character in his own right. Cabbage speaks in a comical blend of modern idiom and formal old fashioned language, reflecting the postman’s mother’s love of period dramas during the cat’s formative years. The English translation uses archaic sentence structure and word choice to convey this linguistic quirk, which is even more clearly marked in the original Japanese. The cat’s speech patterns are a source of comedy and relief for tension: Cabbage retains the values and priorities of a typical pet—for example, nagging the postman through his morning routine so they can go on a walk— which his formal language makes sound absurd.

The newly sapient Cabbage is unable to remember the postman’s mother or grieve her loss, which the postman compares unfavorably with the actions of the famous dog Hachiko, a proverbial paragon of loyalty and fidelity. In response, the postman takes on a paternal role, teaching Cabbage about the world around him and reminding the cat of their shared family memories. This allows the postman to work through his own grief. Cabbage is a source of comfort for the postman, as a tactile presence, in the happy memories he evokes, and in his echoing of the postman’s mother’s soothing wisdom.