Love and beauty

Love and beauty

Japanese literature is well known for its thematic influence in its plays, stories, songs, and poems. Many of the poems and stories that Japanese writers have written about is change, modernization, and, love. Some of the writers whose work has these themes in their writings are Natsume Soseki and Yasunari Kawabata. Their stories and essays have scenarios that show these themes vividly. In this paper, we shall review the idea of beauty and love in the work of Natsume Soseki in Sanshiro and Kokoro as well as the work of Yasunari Kawabata in the dancing girl of Izu. We shall review their literary work and the themes in their work and then describe how this theme is related to the three stories (Stahl 2). We shall examine the pieces of literature separately, and then at the end, we shall discuss the contemporary relevance of the writers’ treatment of the theme of love and beauty.

First and foremost, there is Sanshiro written by Natsume Soseki, which got published in 1908 in japan in a newspaper called Asahi Shimbun. The novel talks about a young man named Sanshiro, coming from a small village called Ogawa. The story begins with the boy moving from his first village to Tokyo for his advanced studies. Changes start occurring when he had to share a room and a mattress with a woman he had just met the other night on the train. Sanshiro sidesteps the lady’s intimate openings, and when they were parting, she criticized him for lacking charisma. On his third train of the seemly long journey, he held a conversation with a man who spoke about how japan was destroying itself and warned him against the hidden dangers in the society. Sanshiro later came to know that the man was a high school teacher. At the university, he met influential people who helped him circumnavigate the life in the university. These people were Nonomiya and Yorijo. Mineko and Yoshiko later complete his inner circle of acquaintances. His experience in his settlement in Tokyo revolves around the three aspects, one of which his hometown of Kyushu and how different it was in terms of modernity.

Tokyo was modern with tall buildings and a lot of people, while his hometown of Kyushu was conservative, traditional, and calm compared to the busy and liberal Tokyo. There is also the aspect of intelligence where we see thinkers like Nonomiya and Hirota losing themselves in the pursuit of academic excellence. Thirdly there is the aspect of love and human emotions whereby we see his relationship with Mineko and Yoshiko. The novel also includes the comical part where Yorijo was campaigning for Hirota to get appointed as the university head in the college of letters. Yorijo wrote an essay explaining how it would be of importance if Hirota and native Japanese would get the post. However, things turned sour when members of the rival candidate’s camp exposed the fact that the essay had gotten written by Sanshiro, an incident that questioned the integrity of professor Hirota.

However, the focal point of the story is related to the theme of beauty and love in the part where Sanshiro develops respect for Mineko. Mineko and Sanshiro have an affection towards each other, but their philosophies about love and behavior make it hard for them to get into a relationship. Mineko Satomi was a modern girl who hailed from a Christian and well to do family. She was talented and beautiful, something that attracted the attention of Sanshiro. There is also Yoshiko, a close acquaintance of Mineko, who attracts some attention from Sanshiro. Yoshiko is pallid but yet beautiful. Mineko is widely associated with her kaleidoscope of colors coming from her kimono, which the painter Hiraguchi finds hard to capture in his painting. Mineko is a woman with an attitude of independence and freedom, which is contrary to the beliefs of women that Sanshiro got used to at Kyushu. Mineko’s position is opposite to the reserved and conservative Yoshiko. She is similar to Sanshiro, and Sanshiro finds her sadness and solemnness too familiar and too identical compared to the enigmatic Mineko. The story is centered in Sanshiro having to choose who to love between the two kinds of beauty.

The theme of love and beauty is seen in the aspect instance where Sanshiro notices the two women Mineko and Yoshiko and get attracted to them based on different aspects. The theme of love and beauty gets connected to the elements of criteria. Mineko is seen as an outgoing, free, and independent woman while Yoshiko gets recognized as a sad, calm, and solemn woman. The independent and free attitude getting stipulated by Mineko baffles the conservative Sanshiro since he is not accustomed to such women. In his native town of Kyushu, the women are traditional, subordinate to men, and they do not have the independence attitude getting seen in Mineko.

On the other hand, there is Yoshiko, who is having the characteristics that Sanshiro is used to see in women. She is solemn and seems to be subordinate, traits that are typical of the native decent Japanese women. However, Sanshiro still doesn’t get convinced about this aspect since he finds it to be very familiar. The theme of love and beauty rings in this part because even though Mineko seems to have characteristics that are contrary to what he believes in, he still does not decide to get into a relationship with Yoshiko. In the end, we see how he terms Mineko to be a stray sheep when he sees her pose for a painting by Haraguchi. Mineko’s attitude is widely under the influence of western culture’s penetration into japan. The focal point of the story is to see whether love will win despite the differences in attitudes and behavior.

The other story is called the dancing girl of Izu or popularly called The Izu Dancer, which is a short story written in 1962 by the famed Yasunari Kawabata. The story is about a young student aged 19 years from Tokyo and a group of musical travelers from Oshima Island when he was touring the Izu Peninsula. During his stay there, he saw the group of performers several times and got attracted by a young girl in the group who was the drummer (Kawabata 5). The attraction to the beautiful young drummer led to the guy getting closer to the group and its members. He develops a friendship with the group’s male member called Eikichi, who introduced him to the group members and even invited him to the group’s events and travels. Eikichi asked the student to come to a public bath for them to share stories and relax.

When he attended the public bath, he got surprised to see the group’s women playing in the river. Taking a closer look at the group, he realized that the beautiful young drummer was younger than he had perceived. He was 19, and the lady was probably 13 years which made it impossible for him to have any sexual relationship with her. When he realized this mistake, he was astounded and even laughed at himself for developing an infatuation for a girl who was younger than her. He continued associating with the group and their activities but then decided to leave and go back to Tokyo, having realized that the love he had for the lady could not amount to a relationship because she was so young. In this story, the theme of love and beauty gets seen when the young man gets attracted to the drummer and even decides to stay longer in Izu for him to know her better. He hoped for him to be loved back and also get into a relationship with her. However, the plan backfired when he realized she was young that he expected, and the love he had for her faded. We, therefore, see that a possible love affair getting barred from happening by the factor of age.

Besides, there is also the story is Kokoro by the famed Natsume Soseki and published in the Asahi Shimbun magazine. The story has a basis on the transformation from the former Japanese Meiji society to the westernized modern era through the friendship between a young man and an older man. The story has three parts where the first part tells us how the narrator had been left on his own at a friend’s house in Kamakura after the friend who invited him had to go back to his family for an urgent issue. The narrator used to swim every day in the sea, and one day he saw a man in the changing room with a friend preparing to swim. He continued to see the man, and after some days, he developed a friendship with that man who he referred to as Sensei. Before he left Kamakura for his home in Tokyo, he agreed to call on Sensei’s house sometimes. Sensei advised the young man that love only led to disillusionment (Stahl 2).

After graduation, the young man returned to his home in the countryside where his ill father had a respite from sickness. At that time, the Meiji emperor was also sick, and before they would hold a graduation ceremony, the emperor died. This issue brought a lot of pressure for him to get a job and at least make his father happy. That was when he decided to write to his friend, Sensei, to help him get the job in Tokyo. Even though he expected no positive response from the letters he had written, he got one from Sensei, that is, a telegram summoning the narrator to go to Tokyo for the job as an accountant (Stahl 10). At first, the narrator refused to leave his father because he was sick, but when a thicker letter came a few days later, he rushed to the station to go to Tokyo. He rushed because the letter indicated that by the time he received that letter, Sensei had died.

From the later, he learned the love story of Sensei and why he always relented from speaking about his friend. Sensei left his home town after the death of his father and having sold all his wealth and went to live in a widow’s house as a boarder. Later he invited his friend K who was having financial issues. Sensei had developed an affection for the widow’s daughter but could not tell the widow because he lacked courage. However, as days passed by, K confirmed his suspicion that he had found an attraction in the widow’s house. When Sensei learned that K posed as a competition to getting the widow’s daughter, he decided to inform the widow that he would love to get her hand in marriage. When K learned what Sensei had done, he killed himself even before Sensei would explain the whole scenario to him. Since that day, Sensei has lived with the conviction that he had killed his friend. At the end of the later, Sensei informs the narrator to keep the whole story a secret and never to reveal it to his wife.

This story confirms the common theme of love and beauty, where we see both the narrator and his friend K falling in love with the widow’s daughter. The love that K had for the daughter and the disbelief that he got when he learned what Sensei had done made him commit suicide. At the end of the story, it is clear that Sensei also committed suicide because he would not live with the conviction that K committed suicide because of love. The theme of love and beauty surrounds the whole story of Sensei, which seems to be the focal point of the entire narration.

From the three pieces of literature, we see that the theme of love and beauty is the central theme. Love and beauty is an aspect that every individual encounters in his or her lifetime in many occasions. In essence, it is something that each rational human being wishes to experience. On the aspect of beauty, there is the famous saying that it lies in the eyes of the beholder. Therefore, it is safe to say that other humans do not have control over the beauty definitions from another person’s perspective. How we deal with love and grace has a significant impact on our lives, as exemplified in the scenarios in the three stories. Some choose to deal with it silently by letting its fiery blaze burn inside without revealing it to the outside world. However, a fair share of people decides to deal with love by making it known to the world as a whole. This is usually the basis of societal expansion. For instance, in the story of Sanshiro, we see how he is in a dilemma of whom to love between the two women Mineko and Yoshiko. Mineko is liberal and independent, while Yoshiko is conservative.

The theme in the story relates to our contemporary lives when, at a particular moment, you get cornered to make tough decisions about our relationships. Relationships have never been an easy fete. While people may argue that relationship development is mainly based on love, the assumption may be entirely untrue. They sometimes call for commitment from both parties. Sometimes you find women that you have an interest in, to be having varied traits, and you have to make that tough decision on who to get into a relationship with. This provides an example of commitment. Both of these women are attractive, and the person is in a dilemma. If there is no selection, then there is the possibility of losing both of them. But how can the person ensure that they remain with the selected party? The answer is through commitment, where the selecting party decides to walk with that one woman through thick and thin. However, this is not always the case in modern society as some people choose to break their commitments as soon as they get a glimpse of a better candidate.

Furthermore, there is the scenario of ‘the Izu dancer’ where the author shows a young man interested in a woman who is way too more youthful than him, and hence they cannot be in an intimate relationship. The story relates to our contemporary life in many ways. There are so many people focused on age, which is just a number rather than the beauty and happiness that emanates from love. If there is more focus on this, then perhaps the world would eventually become a better place. The story gives us one of the reasons why infatuation usually ends because the story tells us of love that dissolved into thin air. Desire will be a momentary feeling that has no sustainability. Unfortunately, the current society seems to get confused between these two things. They end up committing to people who they are fascinated with, which is detrimental to the beauty of love.

Lastly, the theme of beauty and love gets stipulated well in the story of Kokoro, which means feelings of the heart. The story shows us the extent to which people can go for love. In the story, Sensei and his friend K commit suicide because of love. They both loved the same woman and wanted to marry her. This story relates the theme of love and beauty to our contemporary lives, where we see a lot of people committing suicide, killing others, and even consulting charms just because of love (Trauma/PTSD studies theory 16). One would define that these people are ‘crazy for love.’ However, these scenarios beg the question, is it worth taking a life for another person who is not as willing to fight for the same love? Isn’t it a little too hard on oneself when they already pre-determined negative actions when entering into the realm of love? The eye-opening aspect that all these people should be ready to examine is the fact that even if they died for love, their partners would swiftly move on with their lives (Tyson 85).

Moreover, if they are willing to die, then there is simply no love-it is an obsession, which is quite dangerous. One of the plays that show this scenario is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, where the characters committed suicide because of love. Love can make people do many queer things, and the story by Sensei is just but an excellent example of what people can do for love.

In conclusion, the theme of love and beauty is well stipulated in the three stories. The writers seem to have incorporated this theme quite well such that the reader can relate it to their real life. The paper has an analysis of how the issue applies to the three stories and how the scenarios in the stories relate to our contemporary lives (Stahl 6). All three novels by the renowned writers define an essential feature found in most Japanese literature. Even though in some of the stories, there is the theme of westernization marked by the significant westernization of many Japanese lives, the only issue that is found in all the three stories is the theme of love and beauty.

References

Stahl, D. “Social Trauma, Narrative Memory, and Recovery in Japanese Literature and Film.” Routledge: London. 2019

Stahl, D. “Trauma, Dissociation and Re-Enactment in Japanese Literature and Film.” Routledge: London. 2017

Tyson, Loise. “Feminist Criticism in Critical Theory Today. New York: Routledge (2006)

“Trauma/ PTSD Studies Theory”