Yoko Ogawa references vegetables excessively throughout his short story, “Old Mrs. J”. He does this to create an alternative meaning to the word while a reader is reading the text. Yoko Ogawa uses the word vegetable to show the progression of Old Mrs. J’s character throughout the story by pairing her with the mention of the vegetables.

While reading “Old Mrs. J,” it is very hard to ignore all of the times the author, Yoko Ogawa, references vegetables. Vegetables are a symbol of life, but Ogawa uses vegetables to symbolize the progression of Mrs. J’s character instead. The first time the word vegetable is used is when, “A stray cat turned out to be the reason for my first gift of vegetables from Mrs. J” (Ogawa 1).  This is when Mrs. J first encountered the narrator. She is trying to scare off the cat because it is stealing her vegetables. During this story it seems that Mrs. J is always in association with these vegetables.

The next mention of the vegetables is the next day. Mrs. J scatters pine needles all over her vegetable garden to prevent the cat from stealing the vegetables. During this encounter with Mrs. J, she lies to one of the tenants. The narrator tells her to put the pine needles down, but she says, “My grand- mother taught me that years ago when I was a girl” (Ogawa 2). This is when Mrs. J first appears to be a little abnormal. Vegetables are mentioned again in the next paragraph. Old Mrs. J is bringing the narrator vegetables from her garden, and she is also picking up his mail for him. He notices that she has taken a package, and she does not give it to him till two weeks later (Ogawa 2). Every time vegetables are mentioned with Mrs. J, she seems to become more peculiar.

During the story Mrs. J starts to grow carrots that are in the shape of hands. When she gardens, “Mrs. J harvested them with great care, digging around each carrot and pulling gently on the top to extract it.” (Ogawa 4). Old Mrs. J is recognized for these odd carrots and is photographed in the vegetable garden for the local newspaper. After the pictures are taken the narrator is pulled aside by the authorities. The officers come up to the narrator and start interrogating him. He is not aware of what is going on, but they ask him all of these questions about Mrs. J. The character is very shaken up and is questioning as to what Mrs. J did. It turns out that Mrs. J had strangled her husband and had cut off his hands. She disposes of her husband’s dead body in the old post office and covers his body with a ton of limes. Authorities also cannot find the hands of Mrs. J’s husband even after searching the vegetables garden (Ogawa 4). The last time vegetables are mentioned is when the authorities had uncovered the body and searched the garden. This is when we are awaken to the realization that Old Mrs. J is a murderer.

Ogawa uses the vegetables to portray Old Mrs. J because they are similar in appearances. For example, carrots have a rough outside and are short. Mrs. J portrays a carrot in that way. Ogawa says, “It looked nearly as old as Mrs. J and seemed to be suffering from a skin disease” (1). In this part of the story Ogawa is talking about the cat that was stealing the vegetables out of the garden, but he is talking about Old Mrs. J appearance. She is a frail lady but gardens even though she is about eighty years old. She is also compared to vegetables because vegetables go bad fast. In the story she starts off as a fresh vegetable with nothing making her come off as strange. Then more time passes and she becomes more mysterious, just like how a vegetable goes bad. When we find out that she murdered her husband. This would be the same point in time a vegetable goes rotten. Ogawa likes to compare Mrs. J to the vegetables to show the progression of Mrs. J’s character.

The vegetables come to represent something more to the reader when they are reading it. The amount of times we see the word vegetable is a bit excessive to not have another meaning. When the reader is reading deeply into the text they notice that the underlying meaning of the vegetables is darker than one might think. Old Mrs. J seems like a regular old woman, but when reading through the story it is noticeable that she is not normal. Normalcy flies out the window when the narrator realizes that she is taking his mail. This is the point in the story when we realize something is up. Also this is the halfway point in relation to the repetition of the word vegetable. This is the third time this word is mentioned throughout the story out of five. It is also very interesting as to how people usually associate vegetables with life, but during this story it is also a sign of murder and death. Ogawa takes this usual meaning and twists it to add drama to his story.

We see the repetition of the word “vegetables” a lot throughout Ogawa’s “Old Mrs. J”. He uses that word five times during the story and every time it has something to do with Mrs. J. The first time it was used was when she was being introduced. The second time was when she told her first lie to the tenant. The third was when the narrator realized that Mrs. J was taking his mail and giving it to him weeks later. The fourth time was when Mrs. J and the narrator were in the garden right before she was convicted of murder, and the last time was when they searched the garden for her husband’s hands. We see Mrs. J’s character development through the repetitive use of the word vegetable during the progression of the story. Ogawa does this very effectively and adds character to this story through this technique.
