Julie Otsuka At The Round Earth's Imagined Corners

“Diem Perdidi” by Julie Otsuka is a short story about a mother who remembers and does not remember things told from the daughter’s point of view. Diem Perdidi, means “I have lost a day,” (Otsuka 680). Which, makes sense for what this story is about. The mother remembers certain aspects of her life, but forgets other things, then she remembers different things and forgets things she used to remember. For instance, in the beginning, “she remembers her name, name of the president,” then in the end, she doesn’t remember those things she used to. She loses her memory by each passing day.

Julie Otsuka uses refrain as a literary device in her short story. While narrating her story, she repeats what the mother remembers and does not remember. Most of her

The subtext in this story is the lack of connection Jude doesn’t seem to have. Like the usage of literary devise, connecting plays a role in this story. The lack of connection between Jude toward any other character isn’t directly stated within the story, but we can extract it from the story by seeing how the character reacts to situations and people in the story. This subtext within the story, is successful because it explains how Jude is and why he acts the way he does. His disconnection with other people, explains the scene on Thanksgiving. He was that someone would look at him or give him a pat, but he never asked them to, never acted like he needed that and just allows them to continue their conversations around him, because he wasn’t able to connect with them and express how he was feeling and what he wanted at that particular moment. Which seemed to occur at different times throughout the story. He wanted something, but didn’t express that he did and just let things happen the way they did. This lack of connection set the tone for Jude’s character and formed how he was feeling at the