Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata - Essay Example

? Lecturer: “Thousand Cranes” A ‘Thousand Cranes’ just like in the Japanese origami is prepared from paper and is a symbol of good luck in many of the Asian countries. This may be utilized at the time when a child is born, wedding, as gesture of good look or good providence for the new born. Therefore, the main characters I came across included Chikako Kurimoto, Kikuji Mitani, Mrs. Ota, Yukiko Inamura, and finally Fumiko Ota. The first time I meet all the main characters in one scene together is when the main protagonist Kikuji is found being served and drinking from one of his father’s favorite tea ceremony bowls. The main theme being depicted in this book is the way in which men and women have been mastered by fate that is beyond their control. The life of Kikuji is pre-determined by the long time secrets held by his father, Chikako and Mrs. Ota. Many of the characters are in pursuit of ideal beauty according to Kawabata’s fiction (16); he is of the suggestion that most of the times it resulted in revealing the passion and the egotism that lies beneath the surface of attractiveness. Mrs. Ota is characterized by attraction to her maternal nature and this makes to look younger because surrogate mothers attract him both emotionally and sexually. Kikuji Mitani is a typical protagonist of Kawabata’s fiction as he is man drawn and not rational in his decisions. It is manifested when he is involved in a love relationship with Yukiko a fair virginal girl but in reality he is engrossed to Mrs. Ota and later his daughter, Fumiko. The story of the elder Mitani’s affairs with Chikako and Mrs. Ota results in the formation of social subjects of love, marriage, widows and pottery. Consequently, this history is later passed on to the next generation of Kikuji, Inamura and Mrs. Ota because the story actually takes place five years after the death of Kikuji’s father. But Mitani is not so much a victim of the tangled life but he is morally corrupted by his own self and that is what Mrs. Ota and Fumito her daughter go ahead to exploit. All these characters aid in the build of the theme of fate that controls human destiny. This is because most of the incidences that occur in the story occur due to chance. The relationship between the main characters in a ‘Thousand Cranes’ are so engrossed in sets of love triangles together with the implicit parallels among the characters established by these relationships, thereby objectifying Kawabata’s sense of human destiny being controlled by fate. Much of the lives of characters in this script are subject to chance that the author uses the tea ceremony to clearly bring out this picture. This is actually brought in the limelight when the father of Mitani met Chikako because all of them have a mutual interest in the tea ceremony and the utensils used to practice it. Kikuji, the main character is always wondering how some occurrences are an image of the things that happened almost 300 years ago but are still relevant in today’s world. This is clearly evidenced when his father chooses to use non-perfectly formed and glazed piece of pottery as a student of the tea ceremony. This introspection occurs although this young man claims not to be in attending of tea ceremonies and also it is in this ceremony that he met Yukiko and all this occurred due to fate. Melancholic perceptions intertwined with moments of hope and nostalgia is the feelings of this young man in this situation. (Kawabata, 9). Some of the things we under go in life are actually as a result of fate and destiny. Like in the legend of the 1000 cranes from where the novel acquired its title, Sadako Sidaki a female victim of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was encouraged to make paper cranes in order to try and save her life. She did this despite the cancer slowly eating her away. Despite the fact that she struggled to finish the 1000 cranes, as fate would have it she died. This instead of being forgotten just like that, her destiny is to be remembered because she ended up a melancholic legend (Kawabata, 59). Just like fate would have it Mrs. Ota, a widow of a man the elder Mitani knew because of shared interests and most valuable assets in Mitani collection of utensils were bought from Mrs. Ota. Besides, other valuables found their way into younger Mitani as gifts from Fumiko. Just as behaviors are passed from one generation to another, it results in the characters witch hunting others for mistakes done by other people. This is evident when Mrs. Ota tracks the younger Mitani to punish him for mistakes done by his father. This is started when Kikuji fell in love with Mrs. Ota when his father died. As fate of human destiny would have it Mrs. Ota is found to have committed suicide and the motive behind the death is not clearly established. Mitani accuses her of failing to differentiate between father and son. Chikako may be right to claim that by Mrs. Ota’s death she intends to bring Kikuji and Fumiko together. However, she is a victim of the continuous emotional bond to the elder Mitani. After the funeral, the Shino bowl is given to Kikuji and by chance it happens that the daughter of Mrs. Ota, Fumiko is the one that serves Kikuji contrary to what he was expecting. Just as it was earlier used in the tea ceremony by Kikuji’s father, the bowl is also passed on to the next person symbolizing the transfer of behavior to the next generation (Kawabata, 109). The tea ceremony being a custom of the ancient Japanese people is constantly used by Kawabata to encourage the relationship that exists between Yukiko and Mitani. The tea ceremony staged by Chikako memorializes the death of Mrs. Ota in addition to recognizing the date on which the father of Mitani had an annual party in his house. This manifests that as fate would have it, Mrs. Ota is a victim of her continuous emotional bond with the elder Mitani. Chikako’s action emanate from the fact that Kikuji’s father terminated her relationship with her in the process she dislikes Mrs. Ota. The lives of the characters absolutely thrives on chance and this clearly highlighted by Kawabata where Kikuji had washed the Shino bowl severally and he came to be convinced that the bowl had been used by various people. The tea ceremony in “Thousand Cranes” functions in its contemporary form as a discourse of political power expressed in aesthetic terms. The interaction of the people is the novel is only made possible through structures provided for them thus determining the outcome and course of those relationships. Looking at the Shino bowl that belonged to Mrs. Ota and his fathers Karabatsu bowl Mitani thinks that although the bowls were that old they had served their purpose irrespective of being stretched by age (Kawabata, 78).This shows how human have passions for objects. The impurity of human motives and actions are perspectives that are depicted by the utensils at the tea ceremony. They have passed though the hands of many people and thus leading to various destinies in life depending on where it chose to lead you. When Kikuji attends the tea ceremony, he is aptly shocked to realize that the ceremony was arranged to meet his potential future bride Miss Inamura whom Chikako hopes he would marry but on the contrary he is fascinated by Mrs. Ota and Fumiko the daughter of Mrs. Ota (Kawabata, 98). The novel deals with woman’s attempt to pursue revenge from a lover to the extent of inflicting pain and suffering to his son. She misuses her artistry in tea making to manipulate the feelings of young Mitani. Moreover, the tea ceremony highlights the influence of the elder Mitani to his son and leads to the straying of Mitani’s son compared to the advantageous effects of tea ceremony (pg.34).To underline the theme of fate and destiny in the novel Kikuji is deeply drawn to the complexities of the past and the unresolved relationships of his father other than making amendments to start his own life afresh. Summarily, Kawabata’s writing create melancholy, and a poetic feeling in its memory descriptions of memories of a lost love or moments of natural beauty to see how human can take control of their lives. Awareness of mortality is no longer the consolation of human suffering. This is because he balances the claims of individual passion against perspective of time (Kawabata, 87-107). Work Cited Kawabata, Yasunari., Thousand Cranes. Tokyo: Penguin Books Limited, 2011. Read More