In The Samurai’s Garden, Stephen, a young man from China, travels to Tarumi, a little seaside village in Japan, to recover from tuberculosis. During that time, China is being invaded by the Japanese. Matsu, the caretaker of his house in Tarumi, introduces him to Sachi, a woman plagued with leprosy. Gail Tsukiyama, the author of the book, utilizes indirect characterization, through Sachi’s experiences with gardening and the challenges from leprosy, to educate the reader that physical beauty has no correlation to one’s true inner beauty and holds less importance. The first instance of this involves Matsu showing inner beauty to Sachi through building and nurturing a garden. Sachi led a vain lifestyle prior to being infected by leprosy. When …show more content…
she runs away from home to protect her family’s honor, Matsu helps Sachi set up a garden to occupy her free time.
Sachi recalls, “Never once did he question me. I needed my life to be simple, without any beauty to remind me of all that I had lost...And you have seen the kind of garden Matsu made for me… with Matsu’s help and patience, I had created something from the most common elements...what I thought would be barren and distant instead was filled with quiet beauty“ (150). Gail Tsukiyama uses the word “simple” and the phrase “common elements” to emphasize the fact that Sachi wishes to lead a life free of luxury and vanity. Sachi looks at her past as if it were a dream because she is embarrassed of her vanity and believes the disease chose her as a punishment. Sachi crafted a garden, free of superficial beauty. Encased within it, she found a deeper “quiet beauty”. It taught her that one can find beauty in anything if one looks hard enough. The once “barren and distant” garden brought forth a hidden inner beauty in its simplicity. The physical beauty of a scattered arrangement of rocks cannot be compared to its true inner beauty that it holds, as the rocks represent Sachi’s longing to be free from narcissism. Sachi continues to learn the …show more content…
importance of inner beauty and Matsu tries to emphasize it as well. The author writes, “Matsu shook his head, looking out toward the garden. ‘Sachi-san, you’ve only known the ordinary kind of beauty which appears on the outside. Perhaps you now desire something deeper’” (151). Matsu looks to the garden as if to suggest that the beauty of the garden is deep inside and hard to see. Matsu tells Sachi that superficial looks are “an ordinary kind of beauty” as it is something that most people can easily see without much thought and therefore, it hides true inner beauty. The last phrase, ‘perhaps you now desire something deeper” demonstrates that Matsu is trying to open Sachi’s eyes to a new dimension. In this world, inner beauty exists and holds greater priority than external beauty. Matsu is striving to show Sachi a type of beauty which has no correlation to external beauty but is just as beautiful. Throughout the book, Sachi goes through many trials fighting leprosy.
When Sachi finds out she has the disease, society pressures her to commit suicide. As she runs away from her village, refusing to kill herself, she hears, “Sachi! Sachi, it’s me Matsu! Let me help you!...he smelled of sweat and the earth as he whispered, ‘it takes greater courage to live’” (138-139). Matsu whispers into Sachi’s ears, “it takes greater courage to live”. This implies that Matsu is teaching Sachi that running away from her problems is not going to help. From this quote, we can also infer that the courage to face life’s challenges is a form of inner beauty as it is an admirable trait. After Sachi reaches Yamaguchi, Matsu introduces her to Michiko the caretaker. “I opened my eyes to take my first good look at Michiko...Even now, when I think of her kindness, there is pain in my heart remembering my first reaction to her. When I fully opened my eyes and saw the noseless face and the distorted features eaten away, I let out a scream” (141). At the beginning, the effects of leprosy on Michiko scares Sachi into believing that her future holds something similar. As Sachi says, “when I think of her kindness, there is pain in my heart,” and from this we can infer that Michiko took great care of Sachi when she was developing the disease, but the first reaction of Sachi when she saw Michiko causes her to feel ashamed of herself , as Michiko took care of her until her
death. The author’s indirect characterization of Sachi through her battles with leprosy and caring for gardens, compel her to discover that inner beauty can be found in anything and good looks can be superficial. Due to this, Gail Tsukiyama, the author of The Samurai’s Garden, justifies that inner beauty and external beauty have no correlation, and inner beauty holds a greater emphasis than beauty on the outside. Through this, one can infer to not seek cosmetic appearances, but to rather seek the deeper beauty of everything, one which is harder to see, but more rewarding nonetheless.
Much of what is considered modern Japan has been fundamentally shaped by its involvement in various wars throughout history. In particular, the events of World War II led to radical changes in Japanese society, both politically and socially. While much focus has been placed on the broad, overarching impacts of war on Japan, it is through careful inspection of literature and art that we can understand war’s impact on the lives of everyday people. The Go Masters, the first collaborative film between China and Japan post-WWII, and “Turtleback Tombs,” a short story by Okinawan author Oshiro Tatsuhiro, both give insight to how war can fundamentally change how a place is perceived, on both an abstract and concrete level.
Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American community in California 1919-1982 by Valerie J. Matsumoto presents a close and in-depth study of social and culture history of Cortez, a small agricultural settlement located in San Joaquin valley in California. Divided into six chapter, the book is based primarily on the oral interviews responses from eighty three members of Issei, Nisei, and Sansei generations. However, many information are also obtained from the local newspapers, community records, and World War II concentration camp publications.
In The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, a young man is thrown from his established world, left in a new, confusing realm that holds more than meets the eye. In the midst of a violent and ferocious war between the Chinese and Japanese in mid 1937, this young man, Stephen, contracts tuberculosis, and is sent to his family’s summer house in Japan. There he meets the house’s caretaker, Matsu, a simple and reserved man who holds back all but the most necessary speech. This meeting will come to define many of Stephen’s interactions with others throughout the novel: reserved and limited. In this odd land filled with subtle secrets and unspoken uncomfortability, Stephen is prepared for a very quiet and restful period, marked with healing and growth.
Matsu’s, the heroic samurai, garden highlights his personality and the struggles he faced throughout his past. Matsu lives a very private life because of these struggles. With the arrival of Stephen, Matsu is forced to be extroverted rather than his usual introverted self.
Sometimes people are judged by their looks, and preferences will be made towards the more beautiful people before the less beautiful people. What individuals don’t put into account is that the person’s personality is part of their beauty. In Gail Tsukiyama’s novel, The Samurai’s Garden, through the characterization of Sachi’s personality and adversities, Gail Tsukiyama conveys the message that beauty is deeper than just the outside and this message is important because one shouldn’t judge someone just by their looks.
A savior, caretaker, brother, friend, and outlet society are only a few of the characteristics and responsibilities of the quiet and reserved Matsu. In The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, Matsu is understood to be a housekeeper of Stephen’s family beach house in Tarumi. He tends to his garden near the house and seems to have lived alone most of his life. He is described as an unforgotten samurai who is strong yet concealed behind the impenetrable mask that he wears. Slowly, he reveals to soften as his feelings become extracted. Matsu is revealed as a pillar of support for a baffled and anxious Stephen, throughout Matsu’s wise advice, his understandings, and his previous experiences.
In the ancient Japanese culture, one great aspect was on how they emphasized on the intrinsic themes of loyalty and honor. They had fierce warriors known as samurai’s. A samurai was a traditional warrior who would protect and be loyal to their masters no matter what. They were known to be skilled soldiers, benevolent men, self-sacrifice, sense of shame, along with other major characteristics that embodied them as a samurai. While this class of warrior no longer exist today, the remembrance of a samurai is present in the minds of the characters in the novel, The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. Tsukiyama does a fascinating piece of work by really elaborating and describing the great attributes that Matsu possess of a true samurai. In the
Men must face hardships. Men must face disease. Men must face each other [Parallel]. Men constantly pressure one another into perfection. Some men, however, crumble under the burden looming over their heads [FoS]. When some men cannot face themselves or those around them any longer, they choose a dangerous and deadly escape. They would rather commit suicide than face their hardships. In the japanese culture, society encouraged seppuku to end a life before a man brought dishonor to his family. In a world full of yearning for honor, young men learned that they must express courage through suicide to fulfill their honorable ancestors’ wishes. Gail Tsukiyama uses her novel The Samurai’s Garden to prove that only
Running Head: THE BEAN TREES. Abstract This book report deals with the Native American culture and how a girl named Taylor got away from what was expected of her as part of her rural town in Pittman, Kentucky. She struggles along the way with her old beat up car and gets as far west as she can. Along the way, she takes care of an abandoned child which she found in the backseat of her car and decides to take care of her.
...iyama appeals to the readers’ emotions and convinces them that the garden’s beauty was able to distract Stephen from the initial loneliness of his situation.
April Raintree is the main protagonist in the book, In Search of April Raintree by Beatrice Mosionier. Throughout her childhood she was embarrassed to be Metis, and because of her taking after her mother’s Irish pale skin, being able to blend into white society she would hide her native ancestry.
Akira Kurosaw’s Seven Samurai is a film that encompasses various ideologies in order to allow the audience to understand the lives of Japanese people during the 1600’s. The film delves deep in social issues of the roles of the people within the society, the expectations as well as the obligations within the respected castes and elements within groups of ; suffering, working together, protecting family and working for the better good of the community.
The Heian period(794-1185), the so-called golden age of Japanese culture, produced some of the finest works of Japanese literature.1 The most well known work from this period, the Genji Monogatari, is considered to be the “oldest novel still recognized today as a major masterpiece.”2 It can also be said that the Genji Monogatari is proof of the ingenuity of the Japanese in assimilating Chinese culture and politics. As a monogatari, a style of narrative with poems interspersed within it, the characters and settings frequently allude to Chinese poems and stories. In addition to displaying the poetic prowess that the Japanese had attained by this time period, the Genji Monogatari also demonstrates how politics and gender ideals were adopted from the Chinese.
Ito, Teiji. The Japanese Garden—An Approach to Nature. Trans. By Donald Richie. Yale University Press, 1972.
In Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder teaches philosophy and it explains basic philosophical ideas better than any other reading book or textbook that I have ever read. The many philosophical lessons of the diversified thinkers of their own time were dexterously understood. The author has a wonderful knack for finding the heart of a concept and placing it on display. For example, he metamorphoses Democritus' atoms into Lego bricks and in a stroke makes the classical conception of the atom dexterously attainable. He relates all the abstract concepts about the world and what is real with straightforward everyday things that everyone can relate to which makes this whole philosophy course manageable. ''The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions: How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions? And most important, how ought we to live?'' (Gaarder, Jostein 15).