Kobo Abe begins his novel, The Woman in the Dunes, in an unnamed village where the residents trick the protagonist, Junpei Niki, into walking down a steep Rope ladder in a sandpit. The ladder takes Niki to prison and its disappearance causes Niki to panic. Although a simple tool, the rope ladder continues to appear in the novel physically and in Niki's desires. The rope ladder in Abe's The Lady in the Dunes is a layered symbol used to heighten the reader's understanding of Niki's imprisonment, her feelings of hope, and her search for freedom. Waking up in the hole, Niki asks the woman on the ladder that “[he] disappeared from where he had been the night before” (46). Niki's escape routes are gone. The scale, however, does not appear to have disappeared; the rope was removed by the village leaders. Removing the ladder, they force him to stay in the sandpit. Although Niki "dug his arms into the sand, groping for [the ladder]," he could not find it and "never would, no matter how hard he tried" (47). Niki's imprisonment is not an accident, and the loss of the ladder highlights this. The ladder plays a primary role in Niki's imprisonment because "[he] can't get out of a place like this without a ladder" (49). His decision to get off has trapped him with an unnamed woman. The couple is engaged in a Sisyphean task; no matter how much sand they move, it quickly pours out, filling the holes; billions of 1/8 mm grains of sand wash down the slopes, erasing all previous work. Niki often notes the size of the sand, revealing an important choice by the author. Abe adds a distinct character aspect, Niki's obsession with the individual, to intensify Niki's feelings of captivity. Why... middle of paper... did he end up in the hole because he simply couldn't escape, or because he allowed the ladder to dictate his mental freedom? Perhaps Niki was trapped simply because she chose to focus only on the scale. Abe creates an interesting juxtaposition when he uses the ladder to represent freedom and imprisonment, two opposing ideas. However, this juxtaposition leads the reader to wonder if the things that free them also imprison them. Does having a two-way ticket in life, in opportunities, in good times, in abilities, cause them to get trapped? Through the use of the ladder as a symbol, Abe opens the door to larger questions about captivity, hope, and freedom, while also contributing to the reader's understanding of The Woman in the Dunes. Word Count: 1,500 Works Cited Abe, Kobo. The woman in the dunes. Trans. E. Dale Saunders. New York: vintage, 1964. Print.