J 314 KOKORO - Language Use
What strikes you about all the kind of that Sôseki is using in these first 80 pages?
How would you characterize the language of this text?
Consider that he uses such language as:
"Our modern outlook." Alone (2) so he notices these things!
It was in the midst of this confusion that I found Sensei. (2)
Westerner. Curiosity (3)
I was suddenly overcome with the desire to follow him. (5)
Sensei was Unsociable, aloof, always indifferent to his surroundings, always alone (5)
My whole body seemed to be filled with a sense of freedom and joy (6)
No ties of any kind to people there (7)
"I" was filled with a new and deep sense of disappointment, his self-confidence shaken.... (7)
Often during my association with Sensei, I was disappointed in this way. (7)
His curt and cold ways not designed to express his dislike of me, but rather as a warning to me that I would not want him as a friend. (8)
Sensei despised himself, could not accept openheartedly the intimacy of others. I felt great pity for him. (8)
...a feeling that something was lacking in my life. (8)
I thought that with greater intimacy, I would...find in him those things that I looked for. (8)
But now, when Sensei is dead, I was beginning to understand. (8)
His curt and cold ways were meant as a warning to me that I would not want him as a friend. (8)
"You have never thought seriously of the reality of death, have you?" (10)
The narrator feels an irrepressible desire to become close to Sensei. (12)
He was always quiet. I thought him rather lonely. Strangely unapproachable. (12)
Sometimes a shadow would cross his face. (13)
Annoyance? Dislike, Fear? (13)
I felt a gnawing anxiety. I thought his behavior very strange. (13)
He was in constant dread of being coldly analyzed. (14)
Sensei: "I am a lonely man. Also, a melancholy man..." (15)
"I am a lonely man," he said again that evening. And "is it not possible you are also a lonely person?" (15)
Youth is the loneliest time of all. I have not it in me to help you forget it. (15)
You will have to look elsewhere for the consolation you seek. And soon you will find that you no longer want to visit me. (15)
A dreadful anxiety filled my heart. (18)
If I were the sort of person she thinks I am, I wouldn't suffer so. (19)
Do you think me a strong or weak person? (20)
"I did not know whether what I saw was despair, regret or grief." (22)
Shizu, his wife, says:
"When he was young, he was quite different. He has changed so much." (23)
"In the years between my first meeting with Sensei and his death, I came to know much of what he thought and felt. but concerning the circumstances of his marriage, he told me almost nothing." (24)
"I could not know there had been in Sensei's life a frightening tragedy, inseparable from his love for his wife." (24-25)
"Sensei died keeping his secret from her. Before he could destroy his wife's happiness, destroyed himself." (25)
There is guilt in loving. (repeated several times 26-28)
"And remember too that, in loving, there is something sacred." (28)
"The friendship that you sought in me is in reality a preparation for the love that you will seek in a woman." (27)
With so many phrases like this, what kind of picture do you think he is painting?
Doesn't there seem to be so much language here about what characters are thinking or feeling inside their minds...or their hearts? As a text, it is very inner directed?
Isn't this concern with the mind a typically modern phenomenon? As you know, the 19th-early 20th century era was the Age of the "Unconscious," the Age of Freud and Jung, the birth of Psychology as a discipline.
And don't forget one of the most popular English novels which appeared while Sôseki was still studying in London was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (serialized 1899; single volume, 1902). Sôseki left England in Dec. 1902, returning to Japan Jan. 1903. He never specifically mentions Conrad or the novel by name so it is possible he missed it...but given his voracious appetite for British literature, this seems unlikely.
More examples from the text:
He was in constant dread of being coldly analyzed. (14)
We meet Sensei's wife, a beautiful lady, quiet (Shizu); they have no children - "divine punishment" (17)
A dreadful anxiety filled my heart. (18)
"If I were the sort of person she thinks I am, I would not suffer so." (19)
Sensei lived in complete obscurity. "I do not have the right to expect anything from the world." (22)
Shizu: "You know, when he was young, he wasn't at all the sort of person he is now. He was quite different. He has changed so much." (23)
There had been in Sensei's life a frightening tragedy. (24)
Nor did his own wife know how wretched this tragedy has made him...Sensei died keeping his secret from her. (25)
"You are restless because your love has no object...Did you not come to me because you felt there was something lacking?"(26)
There is guilt in loving...in loving there is [also] something sacred. (26, 28)
"The friendship that you sought in me is in reality preparation for the love that you will seek in a woman?"(27)
I valued Sensei's opinions more than did those of my other professors. (28) -- Why do you think this is so?
"It is not you in particular that I distrust but all of humanity." (29)
So, Sensei was quiet, lonely yet "I" desired to get close to Sensei -- Again, why, we might wonder?
Sensei despised himself, refused to accept the intimacy of others.
"I don't even trust myself. And not trusting myself, I can hardly trust others." (30)
"Don't put so much trust in me. You will learn to regret it if you do." (30)
"I bear with loneliness now in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead." (30)
And all this leads up to a KEY PASSAGE on the same p. 30:
You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves. (30)
自由と独立と己とに充ちた現代に生まれた我々は
其犠牲としてみんな此淋しみを味はわなくてはならないでしょう。
Jiyu to dokuritsu to Onore to ni michita gendai ni umareta Wareware wa
sono gisei to shite no sabishimi to awajiwawanakute wa nararnai deshoo.
Or, more literally
We are born in modern times, full of freedom, independence and our selves; this loneliness is a sacrifice everyone must taste/experience.
[自由と独立と己とに充た現代に生れた我々は、その犠牲としてみんなこの淋しみを味わわなくてはならないでしょう.]
What do you think of this pasasage?
What do you think he means by this assertion that loneliness is the price we have to pay for living in this modern age?
Why might this be the case?
More language from the text:
Sensei's opinions, it seemed to me, were not merely the result of cloistered reflection...They were more alive than that. (31)
But his thoughts, I felt, were firmly based on a strong sense of reality...And this reality did not come so much from observation of the experience of others removed from himself, as from his own experience. (31)
...his hints to me were like a vast threatening cloud hanging over my head, vague in outline yet frightening. The fear within me, nevertheless, was very real. (32)
It seemed that Sensei's misanthropic views which he had expressed to me applied to the modern world in general, but not to his wife. (32)
[The grave at Zoshigaya] stood like some monstrous thing forever separating us. (32)
I was surrounded by complete silence. (33)
Shizu: "It seems as of late, he has been less inclined than ever to see people."(34)
Sensei's wife was not so modern a woman as to take pride and pleasure in being able to display her mental prowess. She valued far more the thing which lies buried in the bottom on one's heart. (35)
...I was being sincere. (36)
"...he seems to be rather weary of the world...he is weary of people." (37)
I was deeply impressed by her capacity for sympathy and understanding. (37)
There was hope and strength in him then. (38)
There was something that separated her from Sensei. But...she could not find what this thing...was. This, in short, was her predicament. (40)
That winter, I was obliged to go home...my father's illness had taken a turn for the worse. ...kidney trouble...mild stroke....(44)
I thought of Tokyo...the yearning within me for action increased. In a strange way, I felt that Sensei was by my side, encouraging me to get up and go. (49)
I compared my father with Sensei...Sensei gave me far better intellectual satisfaction as a companion...I should pehaps have said "spiritual"[satisfaction] instead. (50)
Tokyo had become a part of me...I ceased to enjoy being at home. I wanted to hurry back to Tokyo. (50)
"There is no such thing as a stereotype bad man in this world. Under normal circumstances, everybody is more or less good...But tempt them, and they may suddenly change." (61)
No man was immune to temptation. (62)
"Give a gentleman money, and he will soon turn into a rogue." (64)
At that moment I hated Sensei. (64)
An interesting point:
A literary scholar, David Pollack, has pointed out that the first bound edition of Kokoro, for which Sôseki himself designed the cover, displayed the Chinese character for Kokoro 心 prominently and followed it by a quote from the Chinese Confucian philosopher Xunzi (aka Hsün Tzu, c. 310—c. 220 B.C.E.) to the effect that
All human misery arises from the fact that the Heart is coverd over with warped ideals that conceal its capacity for reason...By what means does man know the Way? By means of the heart.
For Xunzi, the heart was a kind of gateway; everything proceeds from it. So, he did not believe that Human Nature was fundamentally Good, as Mencius had believed. Rather, he actually saw it as bad--which is why education was so important. It was necessary in order to ensure that people rid themselves of this layer of warped ideals and overcome their evil nature. He hoped that educatioon, ritual and concentration of mental powers would operate as antidotes to humankind's inclinations to act selfishly and evil.
Xunxi wrote that the final quality the heart needs is stillness, the quality of moving freely from task to task without disorder, remaining unperturbed while processing new information. A heart that has the qualities of emptiness, unity, and stillness can understand the Way. Without these qualities, the heart is liable to fall into various kinds of “blindness” or obsessions that Xunzi attributes to his philosophical rivals. Their hearts focus too much on just one aspect of the Way, so they are unable to see the big picture. They become obsessed with this one part and mistake it for the entirety of the Way. Only with the proper attitudes and control of one's heart can one perceive and grasp the Way as a whole. See Internet Enclyclopedia of Philosophy.
Unfortunately for Xunzi's reputation as a philosopher, two of his disciples, Han Fei and Li Ssu, became very prominent scholars in the School of Legalism and the latter actually became the Premier of the Qin dynasty (221-207 BCE). However, this association of Xunzi's pupils with the Qin dynasty proved in the long term to be disastrous for his place in Confucian history, for the Qin dynasty was a dictatorship which suppressed Confucianism and burned its books--and even buried some its scholars. During the Song dynasty Xunzi's thought was declared heterodox, and has since that time been outside of the mainstream Confucian tradition.
This seems relevant to what Sensei personally experienced. He says,
"I was once deceived...by my own blood relations...I have come to hate not only them, but the human race in general." (66) - Did he become obessed and blinded by what happened to him?
"I" wants to learn from Sensei but Sensei is not yet ready to pour his heart out:
"But if you are suggesting that I should tell you all about my past--well, that's another matter entirely."
"I" says: ..."I value your opinions because they are the result of your experience." (67)
And also,
"I am simply being sincere. And in all sincerity, I wish to learn about life." (68)
"Are you really sincere?" Sensei wonders. He distrusts people so.
But he does come around and agrees:
"Very well, then, I will tell you about my past...Let me simply warn you that to know my past may do you no good. It may be better for you not to know. And I cannot tell you just yet." (68)
"I felt then the helplessness of man, and the vanity of his life." (80)
End of Part One
PART TWO
A couple of harsh comments by the narrator about his father:
I had greater admiration for Sensei than I had for my father (81)
I began to dislike my father's naive provincialism. (82)
I pictured to myself the large, old country house without my father, and with only my mother living in it....Would I be able to leave home, and live without worry in Tokyo? (85)
A darkness overtakes the text as Emperor Meiji is taken ill (88); and later dies (91). Soon, General Nogi Maresuke, commits ritual suicide, by samurai style disembowelment. He thought he was following his lord in death, a real throwback to earlier times.
From his perspective in the countryside, the narrator states:
"I thought of far off Tokyo...immersed in gloom..There was but one light shining and that came from Sensei's house. (92) - quite powerful image
But also, I's father says,
"There are advantages and disadvantages in having one's children educated...education is a means of separating children from their parents." (95)
"I" could not think of his father without thinking of Sensei. The contrast between them was so sharp. (99)
"There was little that I did not know about my father...On the other hand, there was much that I did not know about Sensei...[He]still remained for me a figure half-hidden." (99)
-- Is this part of the allure of Sensei?
I was in such an unsettled frame of mind. (101)
Perhaps in my anxiety to please my father I chattered more than I should. (104)
...I could not be the good son my mother wished me to be. (107)
"My father was the first to see the news of General Nogi's death in the paper." (108)
"My father began to lose his power of speech." Around the same time, a long, bulky letter arrives from Sensei. (119) As his father falls into a coma, "I" starts to peek at the letter: "I am free of the bonds that prevernted me from telling you the truth about myself....I shall never again have the opportunity of passing on to you what I have learned from my own experience. " (121)
But the letter also proclaims that Sensei will in all likelihood already be dead by the time his letter is received. Aack!
He is stunned. His restless heart freezes, he has a desperate desire to act so he leaves his father and boards the train for Tokyo.
"At last I was able to read Sensei's letter from beginning to end." (124)
This means that he is sitting on this Tokyo-bound train when he reads Sensei's "Testament," which constitutes Part III of Kokoro.
Think about it.
This is the end of the novel's narrative present. Think about it. It's like a freeze-frame ending in film:
"I" is sitting there, on a train, bound for Tokyo and his beloved Sensei--who may already be dead--while his father and all the other patriarchs are also either dead or dying. Oh, my. This is quite a moment!
Is this a picture, a snapshot, of where Japan is at this particular point in time?
Caught in the middle, suspended between an old world and a new one which is still unfolding?
The Old ways are dead or dying...but what is the shape of the new one?
Remember this picture:
I, seated on the train, which is in motion, the very symbol of the Modern Age, and he is sitting there, bent over and carefully reading Part III, "Sensei and His Testament."
Isn't this s a kind of avant-garde, provocative, very sophisticated way to go--a very innovative narrative strategy. Perhaps even more so because we now know that Sôseki wrote and serialized in the Asahi Newspaper this Part III first, and then later wrote the "prequels," "Sensei and I," and "My Family and I"--a clear indication that he is willing to undertake bold new narrative strategies.
Good on, ya, Mr. Sôseki!!
Additional Thoughts: Language of the Text
After K and Sensei's summer trip together to Boshu, from page 200 on, the language of the text starts to become riddled with phrases like:
I was like a sick person…overcome by a feeling…beset by the same kind of fear (201)
I felt as if I had been turned into stone…Perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was terrible pain…made me feel rigid for head to toe…cold sweat seeping though my clothes…The pain within me was almost unbearable…My heart seemed to be crying out, "What shall I do?" (204)
I was simply unable to speak…(205)
My head seemed to throb with despair and regret…The silence in K's room seemed eternal. (206)
I felt inside me a strange fear…dread…a kind of devil…would haunt me the rest of my life. (207)
The house now was completely dark. I felt suddenly the silence around me….Once more, I was stricken with fear. (209)
I am a weak man, I am ashamed…I cannot bear the pain…I was not my usual self then…There was not one part of me that was not on guard…(213)
Now is the time, I thought, to destroy my opponent….I said cruelly, “Anyone who has no spiritual aspirations is an idiot.” (214)
K seemed to shrivel before my eyes. (217)
A voice whispered in my ear, “It is up to you to make the final move.” (220)
“Through cunning I have won. But as a man, I have lost.” (228)
When he discovers K's body he says, "But even in such moment, I could not forget my own welfare." (229) He knows he has put his own interests above those of his friend!
And when he reads through K's suicide note, his first thought? "I'm safe." (230)
"I felt only frightened. The fear I experienced then was not caused merely by the proximity of a bloodstained body. What truly frightened me was my own destiny." (231)
Important Note:
While Joseph Conrad's very influential novella, The Heart of Darkness, had originally been serialized in a journal back in 1899, it was repackaged in a story collection that was published in 1902 and that is when it became more widely read and had its greatest impact. We need to remember that this occurred right near the end of Sôseki's stay in Great Britain, so it is like that he was aware of this powerful modern work with the human heart as its main subject.
Perhaps it is no coincidence, then, that he himself later would write his own, innovative novel called The Heart or Kokoro.
Now, the two texts are hardly the same. And it is said that Sôseki was more influenced by Shakespeare's The Tempest when writing Kokoro!
Conrad's work is an allegory about a Belgian merchant who travels up river deep into the heart of Africa and it is considered to be the most thorough and powerful condemnation of western imperialism ever written.
In Sôseki's hands, the subject matter is quite different. It is a more subdued, a more quiet text...though it does have its share of blood ("Now I myself am about to cut open my heart, and drench your face with my blood.").
In fact, Kokoro may just be about the whole idea of "subjectivity" itself, or the interior world of modern individuals. In Kokoro, the voyage is pointed inward, straight into the "heart" of modern Japan. Interiority is its domain. And that is quite a lot to take on!
I think of Bob Dylan's song, "Up to Me" in this context where he says:
We heard the Sermon on the Mount and I knew it was too complex
It didn’t amount to anything more than what the broken glass reflects
When you bite off more than you can chew you've got to pay the penalty
Somebody has to tell the tale, I guess it must be up to me.
So, we have two things here, both germane. Sometimes, there are penalties in life. We make our choices and sometimes, there are consequences; bills come due and we have to pay the price. Sensei gets this and he saw that the price he had to pay for all the new freedoms and independence that come with modern life was alienation and loneliness. Tough deal.
But, the second thing has to do with legacy, with passing things on to other people. Those of us who are able to, have to "tell the tale," so to speak. We have to tell the truth and tell it like it is. That is precisely what Sôseki does. I believe that is how he perceives the role of the writer. It's the writer's job to tell the truth as they see it, as best they can. And so will you when it comes time to write your papers!
I also appreciate the sentiments expressed by Linda Flores in a recent interview when she also comes around to this idea that the choices we make in life do exact their price from us, and that legacies matter:
Natsume Sōseki was a wonderful writer and his prose is incredibly beautiful.
I find the novel fascinating because it is about a nation on the verge of dramatic change. Sōseki’s life (1867–1916) overlapped almost entirely with the Meiji period (1868–1912), and the novel articulates the sensibilities of the late Meiji era and the tensions of a modernizing nation. There is a scene in the beginning of the novel where the student is watching people bobbing about in the sea, suggesting that we are all somehow adrift in a sea of modernity. At the end of the Meiji era, people were struggling to make sense of the implications of living in the modern world. In the novel, the student leaves behind his family and his hometown to pursue the life of a modern intellectual in Tokyo, but he comes to realise that there is always a price to be paid for one’s choices in life.
When you read Kokoro, there is a palpable tension that is sustained throughout – from the first pages to the last. It is a riveting read, a novel that grips you on an almost visceral level; it draws you in and refuses to let you go, even at the end of the narrative.
[One] of the key motifs of the novel [is] the question of legacy – of things being handed down from one generation to the next. Sensei passes on his secrets to the student, and we, as readers of the novel, also become purveyors of that knowledge. As the novel demonstrates, knowledge is never without its costs. I would describe Kokoro as a sublime piece of literature, but it is also a very sombre novel.
And, from another source:
Kokoro—meaning “heart”—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls “Sensei.”
Haunted by tragic secrets that have cast a long shadow over his life, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt, and revealing, in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student’s struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century. . .
Kokoro, Soseki’s last completed novel, is widely considered to be his best, the book in which the themes he had developed in previous works were fully realized. Yet whether Kokoro represents Soseki’s apex or not, experiencing it can only whet your thirst for more.
And also:
In Sensei’s testament Sôseki vividly describes the process of baring oneself:
Now I myself am about to cut open my heart, and drench your face with my blood. And I shall be satisfied if, when my heart stops beating, a new life lodges itself in your breast. (129)
By the end of Kokoro, neither the narrator nor the reader can doubt that this is precisely what has happened. Sôseki executes his exploration of humanity’s intricate psychological condition with an intensity and sophistication that is hard to ignore. He is an author who deserves to be read widely outside a Japan that has recognized him as one of its best.