N's manuscript and her own life both reveal the hopelessness and loss of identity.

The memory police is shown through the typing teacher.

N is shown through the trapped typist. "Perhaps he was trying to wring out any last bit of my voice that remained." (Ogawa 131)

In The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa expertly examines authoritarian governments ability to tear apart society and destroy any hope a community builds through the symbolic use of weather and agonizing diction. Ogawa's detailed imagery of the everlasting winter in the book allows the reader to feel the cold brutality of government overreach and the affect it has on their citizens. This chapter is littered with parallel between N's story and her real life. The words "buried" and "ashes" convey a hopeless feeling that society will never rebuild after such massive losses (Ogawa 136). Trying to connect to this desolate situation is difficult to understand unless one has been in a situation such as this.

Claim: Ogawa uses the parallels between N's manuscript and her own life to convey that a loss of personal expression leads to a fading of one's identity.

"'When you lost your voice, you lost the ability to make sense of yourself. But don't worry. You'll be staying right here. You'll live among the fading voices trapped in these typewriters, and I'll be here with you, giving you instructions" (Ogawa 132)

The typist loses her ability to express herself as N loses more of her identity and her memories. This shows how the ability to convey one's emotions and thoughts directly impacts their sense of identity.

Iris, Brayden, Luna, Quentin, Steven

N's manuscript is parallel to society on the island. It symbolizes oppression and how society is helpless to the memory police's authoritative actions.

'It would be better to get rid of those that were no longer usable"

"Your voice is trapped inside this machine. It's not broken, it's just been sealed off now that it no longer has a purpose"

The helplessness of society is depicted by N's story, as the mute narrator is unable to resist the actions of her teacher. He removed her self expression by removing her voice

Hopelessness. Ogawa utilizes the parallels of hopelessness in N's manuscript and her own life to convey the effect the memory police has on the overall disheartening tone of the chapter. "When he took his time caressing every hollow, as though making sure that the voice that had once been there was, in fact, gone for good." (Ogawa 131). Ogawa uses this simile to describe the dismal tone of the scene, having the person the typist once loved turn on her.