In the book Kokoro, the word kokoro seems to carry a certain vagueness because it’s a foreign word that carries a heavy importance in the book. Since the book did not have a detailed explanation of the word kokoro, I decide to look elsewhere for a definition. In the Dharma Dictionary, it said that kokoro had three meanings, the mind, heart, and essence. It also stated, “Originally, kokoro referred to the beat of the heart, which was considered to be the essential organ of life and the source of all activities. By extension, kokoro refers to all human activities affecting the outside world through intension, emotion, and intellect.” I thought about this quote, and how it might pertain to the book. I found this to be very helpful when analyzing the book to explain how kokoro represents the physical heart, the mind, relationships, and as K himself.
There are a lot of connotations of the physical heart in Kokoro, not just in a spiritual way, but also the physical, blood pumping heart. The Japanese thought of the physical heart as the center of the being, the very essence of that person. When Sensei finally reveals his past to the student he says, “You revealed a shameless determination to seize something really alive from within my very being. You were prepared to rip open my heart and drink at its warm fountain of blood. I was still alive then. I did not want to die. And so I evaded your urgings and promised to do as you asked another day. Now I will wrench open my heart and pour its blood over you. I will be satisfied if, when my own heart has ceased to beat, your beast houses new life.” This excerpt has so much meaning of how important the author, Soseki, thought the heart to be. The beating heart is what keeps you alive, an...
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...ps of the word kokoro and the different aspects of this book. It is just that since the word has so many meanings that it is open to even more interpretations, but I think Soseki wanted it that way. I think he wanted to leave the book open to interpretation because he wanted to keep it alive. Definite things have ends to them, but indefinite things are more mysterious and will stay in the pondering minds of people for many generations. Kokoro is one of those books that we will never truly understand, but like the heart, we can only try to understand it as the words beats within us.
Works Cited
Okumara, Shohaku. "Dharma Dictionary." Buddhadharma Back Issues. 12 Aug. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. . pg1
Natsume, Sōseki, and Meredith McKinney. Kokoro. New York, NY: Penguin, 2010. Print. Pg 124
Chua, John. "An overview of 'The Tell-Tale Heart,'." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 7 Dec. 2010.
Does Kogawa intend these lines to introduce "silence" as a character of sorts? Does the second line clarify the first, or does it instead differentiate one silence from another, an involuntary muteness from a willed refusal to speak?
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the heart is made of a muscle called the cardiac muscle unlike other muscles in the body the cardiac muscle never gets tiered its constantly working and never stops. It squeezes blood out of the heart and then relaxes it to fill it back with blood again in and this process continues and happens everyday until you are dead. The heart beats non stop this is achieved because of the cardiac Muscle.
“Her physical heart problem symbolizes her emotional heart as it relates towards he marriage”. Heart problems are not always health issues because sometimes it can also be the emotional feelings that person is going through that makes the heart ache with sadness. Besides the fact that Mrs. Mallard has “Heart Trouble” one should take the problem more meaningful than just the idea that she is unhealthy. But yes the heart can be looked at because of health conditions but really it enforces that the death of her husband really caused serious pain for her heart to be like that.
The main elements of the Japanese bushido is that a samurai should be courageous in battle, loyal to his shogun or daimyo, kind, and merciful. The bushido stressed that a samurai should be education and support the arts. The bushido also explained an act of suicide through a ritual called the hira-kira. In this ritual, if a samurai fails to complete his duty, he was expected to use a knife to cut his abdomen, after which an assistant would cut off the warrior’s head.
In the reading by Richard Swinburne, he evaluates the mortality of the soul and its interaction with the human body. His position is best described as attributing the soul to a light bulb, and the brain to a functioning socket:
That fleeting feeling in your chest; your heart skipping a beat, or even being breath taken; it could all be signs of being in love, or, in the medical field, it could be the signs of cardiac dysrhythmia (or arrhythmia). The human heart is like the electrical hub of the body. When any electrical hub is disturbed, a slight bump may cause the lights to flicker, or in the worst case, cause the lights to go out; permanently. The same can be said of the human heart. Irregularities in your heart, whether it is one that beats too fast (tachycardia) or one that beats too slow (bradycardia); may not all be life threatening conditions, but some can lead to cardiac arrest
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