The Samurai's Garden Gail Tsukiyama

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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.
Since beauty doesn’t just cover your appearance but also covers your personality, Sachi can still be considered beautiful even if she has been afflicted with leprosy and lost her former outer beauty. Matsu’s sister, Tomoko, was …show more content…

When Matsu and Stephen go and visit Sachi for the first time, Stephen sees Sachi’s real face and sees that the leprosy has eaten away part of the left side of her face, leaving ugly scars. But after his visit, he says, “Sachi-san is very nice,” (Tsukiyama 27-28). Through this passage, Tsukiyama illustrates how leprosy has completely ruined Sachi’s outer appearance, but her personality has not changed. Her appearance is what drove her out of Tarumi and into Yamaguchi, isolated from her family. However, unlike Tomoko, she does not depend on her outer beauty to live. But because of her leprosy, she was forced to leave her former fiancé Kenzo. Because of her leprosy, Kenzo restricted himself from seeing Sachi, and when he sees Sachi with Matsu, thinking they had an affair, he furiously rips off Sachi’s scarf wrapping her face, calling her a monster. Matsu throws him out of the house, and Kenzo yells, “She’s all yours, Matsu, no one else would want her!” Kenzo says this because since Sachi lost all her beauty due to leprosy, no one would want her because her outer appearance would be unattractive. This is also on society because everyone cares about what you look like, and less of how you act and who you are

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