A Mother’s Contrition: A Study of Regret and Sacrifice in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Aroma Delight Samson¹

¹Assistant Professor, Department of English, St. John’s College, Palayamkottai. aromadelight10@gmail.com

Abstract

This paper is a study of the emotions Kei and her daughter go through, in Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold. The novel has characters who travel through time, mainly to set things right in the past or the future. These characters are filled with regret about the past or anticipation about the future, which makes them want to travel through time. The rules to travel are, however, very difficult, that it takes desperation in the part of the characters, to follow the rules and risk travelling. The paper focusses on Kei, a pregnant woman with a weak heart, who must face the fact that she might not live to see her daughter after her delivery. This prompts in her the desperation to travel to the future, to see her daughter at least once. The readers soon discover that the daughter from the future had also once visited Kei, right when Kei became pregnant, to see her mother before she passes away. The paper studies through these two characters, how time travelling eases the regret and awards the sacrifices of the characters, providing them hope, a closure for their emotions, and making their present life a little more bearable.

Keywords: Regret, Sacrifice, Fulfilment, Magical Realism, Time-travel.