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Motif: The Number 6

The number "six" is repeated throughout the novel. Some examples include: 

six interlocking stories (duh)

the music score Cloud Atlas is a "sextet with overlapping soloists" (not unlike the six stories)

Sixsmith is 66 years old

Eva is the result of "six centuries of breeding"

a police officer is shot six times in the back

Napier knew Luisa when she was six

Cavendish is in his sixty-sixth year, he needs 60,000 pounds to avoid being "beat up", his hospital window only opens six inches

Sonmi recites Six Catechisms, drives six-wheeler Fords, lives on the university's sixth floor where she is left alone for six days, completes secondary school in six months, New Year's Day is the culmination of a holiday referred to as Sextet

Meronym arrives in Zachry's sixteenth year and plans to stay for six months, he rolls a six'n'six when playing dice, etc.

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Motif: Ascent and Descent

One more from the Cloud Atlas wikipedia

Many other themes permeate the book. Movements of ascent and descent, for example, appear in all six stories. They are suggestive of humanity's larger moral epiphanies and failings. 

Adam Ewing, whilst ascending the volcano on the Chatham Islands loses his footing and tumbles down into a hollow (pg. 19)

Robert Frobisher is forced to jump from the first floor of a hotel to avoid paying his bill (pg. 43)

the car of Luisa Rey is shunted off the edge of Swanekke bridge and falls into the water (pg. 144)

Dermot Hoggins (the author whom Timothy Cavendish publishes) ejects Felix Finch (a literary critic) from the 12th floor of a hotel (pg. 151)

Sonmi-451 ascends from the underground shopping mall in which she works (pg. 208), and her growing self-consciousness is also explicitly described as an "ascension"

Zachry Bailey and Meronym climb and then descend the Hawaiian mountain of Mauna Kea, Zachry confronting the temptations of the devil (named Ol' Georgie in the book) (pg. 282 onwards)

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Social Darwinism

"Nature's Law & Progress move as one.  Our own century should witness humanity's tribes fulfil those prophecies writ in their racial traits.  The superior shall relegate the overpopulous savages to their natural numbers."

-- The Pacific Journal

The Preacher Horrox and Captain Molyneux have a discussion rife with racism, and especially social Darwinism.  The preacher's view of humanity is as a ladder where his so-called "lesser races" are on a lower rung.

"Sonmi'd been birthed by a god o' Smart named Darwin, that's what we b'liefed."

-- Sloosha's Crossin'

At first it seems weird that they’d think Sonmi was born from Darwin, who lived who-knows-how-many centuries before her.  And yet, after we read the passing in Ewing's journal on their twisted view of social Darwinism, it makes perfect sense.  Sonmi was born from Darwin.  She was born from the social Darwinist viewpoint that the wealthy should seek to increase their wealth, and survival of the fittest meant that lower races were meant to be exploited.  Isn't that exactly how the "fabricant culture" that birthed Sonmi came into being? 

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Bird References

They're everywhere.  Not only todtenvogels, but plain birds.

Pacific Journal: Autua's father told him stories of a sailing ship known to them as the "Great Albatross."

Pacific Journal: Autua tells his story: "Days, I yarned tales of Maui to birds and birds yarned sea tales to I."

Zedelghem: "Shared another pastry with five thousand pigeons, to the envy of a beggar, so I had to give him one too."

Zedelghem: "Amble over to the lake and see the ducks."

Zedelghem: "Sweet bird of solvency."

Zedelghem: "Birdsong foamed in the hour-before-dawn garden."

Half-Lives: In the elevator, Luisa and Sixsmith discuss Hitchcock.  One of his most famous works is of course "The Birds."

Somni-451: At university, Sonmi makes a friend called Wing-027.

Sloosha's Crossin': "An elf owl screeched at me."

Half-Lives: The last thing Napier sees, after he saves Luisa and kills Bill Smoke: "Napier's eyes sink, newborn sunshine slants through ancient oaks and dances on a lost river. Look, Joe, herons."

Zedelghem: Just a few pages after the above heron reference, we discover that Ayrs' doctor is named Dr. Egret.  An Egret is, of course, a type of heron.  Frobisher refers to him, saying: "Never met a quack whom I didn't half-suspect of plotting to do me in as expensively as he could contrive." This is foreshadowing to Dr. Goose's betrayal of Ewing.

Zedelghem: "Silence punctuated by breakneck mousetraps.  Remember the church clock chiming three A.M.  'I heard an owl,' Huckleberry Finn says, 'away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die.'  Always haunted me, that line."

Zedelghem: "A glowing inscription, a nodding magpie, or just a musical certainty would lead me to the right plot."

Zedelghem: A paragraph after the pheasant todtenvogel, we see a chicken. "Some dirty children chased the only fat hen in the country across the square - it flew up to the plinth."

Zedelghem: "Well, this young woman says she's Eva, and the resemblance is certainly striking, but that snotty duckling who left Zedelghem three months ago has returned a most graceful swan."

Zedelghem: "Seagulls wheeled in currents.  I got giddy following 'em and thought of Ewing's mollyhawk."

Zedelghem: "Just as I was flung over the threshold, I embraced Grigoire in a rugger grip, determined that smug cockatoo was coming with me.  Birds-of-paradise in the hallway shrieked, baboons roared."

Frobisher, we see, is especially fond of bird references.

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Todtenvogel

"Two days ago, Ayrs and I completed our first collaboration, a short tone poem, 'Der Todtenvogel.'"

- Zedelghem

The German translation of "todtenvogel" could be either "death-bird" or "dead bird."  Frobisher refers to it as this name several times with phrases like "our death bird" to discuss the piece's success.

The todtenvogel shows up both in Froshisher's segment as well as in most of the others.

The pheasant that Frobisher and Dhondt hit with the car on the way back from the cemetery.  It's flapping around in pain, so Frobisher gets a rock and writes: "I smashed it down the pheasant's head.  Unpleasant - not the same as shooting a bird, not at all." Not only is this todtenvogel a dead bird, it was killed by Frobisher himself.

In the beginning of The Ghastly Ordeal, Cavendish's client Dermot Hoggins throws a critic who wrote negative reviews of his book off the balcony.  The dead critic's name was Finch.

In The Pacific Journal, the two-faced doctor who tries to kill and rob Ewing is named none other than Dr. Goose.  This is an example, of course, of not a "dead bird" but a "death bird."

In Half-Lives, Isaac Sachs and Seaboard CEO Grimaldi are killed in a plane rigged with explosives.  It may be a stretch, but I think a plane doomed to crash could be considered a bird killed in flight.

In addition to specific todtenvogels, the bird imagery and references can be found constantly peppered throughout the book.  Frobisher's section is most dense with them, but they're everywhere.

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Reincarnation II: Siddhartha and the Abbess

"On an xposed rock shelf, Hae-Joo pointed across a gulf. "See him?"

Who?  I saw only a rock face.

Keep looking, he said, and from the mountainside emerged the carved features of a cross-legged giant.  One slender hand was raised in a gesture of grace.  Weaponry and other elements had strafed, ravaged, and cracked his features, but his outline was discernible if you knew where to look.  I said the giant reminded me of Timothy Cavendish, making Hae-Joo smile for the first time in a long while.  He said the giant was a deity that offered salvation from a meaningless cycle of birth and rebirth, and perhaps the cracked stonework still possessed a lingering divinity.  Only the inanimate can be so alive.  I suppose QuarryCorp will destroy him when they get around to processing those mountains."

- Sonmi-451

From this passage we see a few things.  First, the giant is obviously Buddha.  We know from author interviews that David Mitchell was interested in Buddhism.  The Cavendish/Buddha analogy only lends more credibility to the fact that the same soul is reincarnated across the six stories.  Cavendish very much does not align with Buddha on other traits, however, such as rejection of material wealth.

In addition, we get a lot of insight when Sonmi is talking to the Abbess of the colony:

"I asked if Siddhartha was indeed a god.

Many called him so, the Abbess agreed, but Siddhartha does not influence fortune or weather or perform many of a divinity's traditional functions.  Rather, Siddhartha is a dead man and a living ideal.  The man taught about overcoming pain, and influencing one's future reincarnations.  'But I pray to the ideal.'  She indicated the meditating giant.  'Early, so he knows I'm serious.'

I said I hoped that Siddhartha would reincarnate me in her colony."

and a few paragraphs later....

"As she embraced me, the Abbess whispered in my ear, "I shall ask Siddhartha to grant your wish."

- Sonmi-451

I love this part so much, because it tells us so much.  Again, the overwhelming evidence for reincarnation is there.  Mostly, though, I love that Sonmi's wish came true.  There's another character in Cloud Atlas called the Abbess, in Sloosha's Crossin'.  Authors don't reuse character names just for the heck of it.  There's a direct connection between Sonmi's Abbess and Zachry's Abbess, and I'd like to believe that it's a reincarnation, just like Sonmi and Zachry.  

This lends a lot of credit to how Zachry, not Meronym, is the one whose soul is repeated through all the other stories.  Because Zachry, not Meronym, is the one who ended up in the Abbess's colony just like Sonmi wished for.

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Egotism and Selflessness

"Assured her I've never loved anyone except myself and have no intention of starting now" - Frobisher, Zedelghem

"I loved them dumb beasts more'n I loved myself." - Zachry on his goat herd in Sloosha's Crossin'

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On Reincarnations

This is the first of many posts I will likely make on the subject.  But here goes.

The common interpretation of the novel is that the six stories are linked because each character is a reincarnation of the previous version.  I always thought this, and I always thought the six reincarnations of the "same person" were:

Adam Ewing

Robert Frobisher

Luisa Rey

Timothy Cavendish

Sonmi-451

Zachry

However, upon closer reading today, I found this line, quotes by Zachry's son about Zachry, at the end of Sloosha's Crossin':

"...he even b'liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b'loved Sonmi, yay, he 'sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an' comets'n'all."

This is pretty clear that Meronym is the one with the comet birthmark, not Zachry.  Originally, I'd thought the comets represented the people who were reincarnations of each other.  But clearly, Zachry has no birthmark.

This could mean one of two things: either Meronym is the reincarnation, and Zachry just happens to be the main character, or the birthmark doesn't actually denote being a reincarnation.

Either could be true and it really depends on your interpretation.  I'd argue that the latter is true, and here's why.

The main characters are connected thematically.  Each story has three major character archetypes: the main character, someone the main character has an important relationship with, who helps the main character, and the "temptress" character, who tries to lead the main character away from their path or take advantage of them.

Pacific Journal Main: Adam Ewing Supporting: Autua Temptress: Dr. Goose

Zedelghem Main: Robert Frobisher Supporting: Sixsmith Temptress: Vyvian Ayres

Half-Lives Main: Luisa Rey Supporting: Joe Napier Temptress: Bill Smoke

Ghastly Ordeal Main: Timothy Cavendish Supporting: Ernie Temptress: his brother Denholme or Nurse Noakes

Sonmi-451 Main: Sonmi-451 Supporting: Hae-Joo Temptress: the Archivist

Sloosha's Crossin' Main: Zachry Supporting: Meronym Temptress: Old Georgie

In each story, the relationship between the Main and Supporting characters begins as one of conflict, or distrust, or in some other way "not meant to be."

Autua is a Moriori, an escaped slave.  In that time period, it's not accepted that he be associating with a white lawyer such as Ewing.  Frobisher and Sixmith's relationship, while positive from the start, is technically socially unacceptable for the time period given that they are clearly lovers.  Luisa Rey and Joe Napier begin their story at opposing ends of the spectrum - Napier works for the very organization Luisa is trying to take down.  Ernie and Cavendish have several clashes, and Cavendish's egotistical attitude does nothing to help their terse alliance.  Sonmi is a fabricant, and by any norms of their society should not be associating with a student like Hae-Joo.  And finally, Zachry is a Valleysman and Meronym is a Prescient, and at first refuses to accept her into his home.

I believe that the birthmarks merely denote that the stories are connected, not that the people who bear them are reincarnations of each other. 

This is also given proof by the conundrum of Luisa and Cavendish.  Based on their storylines, Cavendish and Luisa would be alive at the same time, and therefore couldn't be true reincarnations of each other.  Some people bypass this saying that Luisa is a fictional character in the Half-Lives manuscript.  I'm not sure I like this solution - I don't want Luisa to not actually exist.  So I prefer thinking that the six main characters are not reincarnations of the same person, but simply occurrences of the same soul.  That way, two occurrences can exist at the same time.  In addition, the soul leaves the comet birthmark on the occurrence, or someone near it.

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Linguistic crossovers

In Sonmi-451, they call each year a "sextet."  This is clearly a reference to the Cloud Atlas Sextet by Frobisher in Zedelghem.

In addition, Somni says: "Flophouse landladies judas their own mothers for a dollar."

In Sloosha's Crossin', Zachry uses the word "judas" in the same form to describe betrayal as well.  Clearly, the linguistic quirks carried over despite the fall.  It's interesting that that they should choose "judas" as a word for betrayal, especially in Sonmi's time, when religion such as Christianity is very much nonexistant.

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I was not genomed to alter history, I told my fellow fugitive. Hae-Joo countered that no revolutionary ever was.

Sonmi-451; Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

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The Prophetess

The Prophetess is, of course, the name of the ship that bears Adam Ewing back towards home in The Pacific Journal.  In Half-Lives, Sixsmith's yacht, the Starfish is moored in the same marina as the restored Prophetess.

"CAPE YERBAS MARINA ROYALE

PROUD HOME OF THE PROPHETESS

BEST-PRESERVED SCHOONER IN THE WORLD!"

"'Starfish is moored on the furthest jetty away from the clubhouse' - Luisa consults Megan Sixsmiths' map - 'past the Prophetess.'

The nineteenth-century ship is indeed restored beautifully.  Despite their mission, Luisa is distracted by a strange gravity that makes her pause for a moment and look at its rigging, listen to its wooden bones creaking.

'What's wrong?' whispers Napier.

What is wrong? Luisa's birthmark throbs.  She grasps for the ends of this elastic moment, but they disappear into the past and the future. 'Nothing.'"

Luisa clearly feels a strong tie to the ship, and the birthmark reference makes it clear.  The line about the past and the future really hits home as Mitchell references again and again that Luisa's life - and all of their lives - are being reincarnated across time.

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Mericans and Corpocracy

In Half-Lives, Lusia attends her mother's charity fundraiser and listens to the Henderson triplets discuss politics.

"I'd establish - I'm not afraid to say it - our country's rightful - corporate - empire.  Because if we don't do it..."

"...the Japs'll steal the march.  The corporation is the future.  We need to let business run the country and establish a true meritocracy."

They're clearly endorsing the corpocratic future that Nea So Copros in Sonmi-451 demonstrates.  The irony here is that Nea So Copros was originally an imperial Japanese plan for pan-Asian union.  In addition, when Sonmi is in the city of Pusan, she describes her surroundings:

"A circus-man was touting for business through a megaphone: 'Marvel at the Two-Headed Schizoid Man!  Gaze upon Madame Matryoshka and Her Pregnant Embryo!  Gasp in Horror at the Real, Live Merican - but don't poke your fingers into his cage!"

This passage gives us a view into the realities of corpocracy.

The Schizoid Man is likely a reference to King Crimson's song "Twenty-First Century Schizoid Man" whose lyrics go as follows

Cat's foot iron claw Neuro-surgeons scream for more At paranoia's poison door. Twenty first century schizoid man. Blood rack barbed wire Politicians' funeral pyre Innocents raped with napalm fire Twenty first century schizoid man. Death seed blind man's greed Poets' starving children bleed Nothing he's got he really needs Twenty first century schizoid man.

The song seems to be hinting at a dark future.  True, it references the 21st century, where Sonmi's time a more distant future.  However, the lyrics of the song reference the evils and lines like "Nothing he's got he really needs" can refer to the AdV, 3-D, and consumerist society that Sonmi lives in.

"Gaze upon Madame Matryoshka and Her Pregnant Embryo!" This bit seems to contradict what we know about the residents of Nea So Copros.  Genetic engineering is clearly what they do for children, given from that xec who threw his fabricant doll off the cliff "advised [Hae-Joo] to pay the xtra dollars to conceive a son when he gets married."  However, Sonmi consistently compares wombs to womb-tanks, implying that consumers still get pregnant and grow their children in their womb.  Which begs the question, why is this pregnant embryo interesting to them?  Most likely, it's a natural pregnancy, not a result of genetic engineering or their version of IVF.  The clever bit of wordplay in this sentence is that matryoshka is the name for Russian nesting dolls.  How clever that Madame Matryoshka has a baby, a small version of herself, inside her?  In addition, the stories themselves are placed within one another like Russian dolls themselves.

"Gasp in Horror at the Real, Live Merican - but don't poke your fingers into his cage!"  This is the funny bit, that connects back to the comment in Half-Lives.  Despite all of their tough words, the triplets at Luisa's party were only half right.  Yes, corpocracy did end up being the system of the future.  However, the Americans were very much not at the helm of it all.

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In Half-Lives, Luisa's mom lives in Ewingsville, CA.  A reference to Adam Ewing, no doubt, an early Californian resident?

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YOU DAMMIT RAT-SHAT HOG-SLITS! YOU DAMMIT WORM'S BLADDERS!

Meronym using THE BEST INSULTS EVER against the Kona; Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

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Margo Roker

Margo Roker - a character in Half-Lives.  A GreenFront activist who refused to sell her land to Seaboard Corp.  Bill Smoke and Joe Napier break in on behalf of the company to steal documents, and Smoke ends up clubbing Margo nearly to death with his flashlight.  She is in a coma for the first half of Half-Lives, and she wakes up in the paragraph immediately following Bill Smoke's death.

"Margo Roker" is one of the first names Timothy Cavendish remembers after his stroke.  His brain must have recalled reading it when he was editing the Half-Lives manuscript.  It also has the sinister foreshadowing effect.  Margo Roker ended up in an induced coma for her refusal to give in to Seaboard.  Cavendish later finds out his stroke was induced, because of his unruliness and refusal to give in.

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Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

In The Ghastly Ordeal, right before the Hoggins brothers burst in, Timothy Cavendish is on the toilet reading Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

When the professor discovers Sonmi's reading habits on her sony, he reads off a list of download requests, including - can you guess - Gibbon's Decline and Fall.

Interesting that the author should choose that particular book to repeat.  Obviously, Cavendish declines and falls in health, freedom, and mental state during his story.  Sonmi ascends, the very opposite of the word "decline," but in the end she is arrested and put to death, the very definition of a fall.  It also, of course, foreshadows the decline and Fall of civilization itself, leading to Zachry's era.

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"Sick teen-squid Zachary"

- What Cavendish heard from he foreign cab driver (his meaning being "sixteen quid, exactly")

Obviously a quick reference to Zachry in the Sloosha's Crossin' story.