Reflection Paper On Japanese Garden

depths, emotions to the characters, plot and theme in the book. The devices are used

In this day and age, people tend to avoid being different. Fitting in with the status quo when it comes to physical attractiveness is considered the proper thing to do, yet in The Samurai’s Garden, the characters show their beauty in a unique way. Due to their circumstances, Sachi, a once beautiful member of a leper colony, Stephen, a young Chinese student diagnosed with tuberculosis and Matsu, a quiet man who chooses to live in near seclusion, are all regarded as outcasts. However, these challenges give them a chance to grow and mature into truly beautiful people, especially on the inside. Through unveiling Matsu and Sachi’s distinct personalities, Stephen discovers another dimension to beauty; through this, Tsukiyama conveys that the most

Like walking through a barren street in a crumbling ghost town, isolation can feel melancholy and hopeless. Yet, all it takes is an ordinary flower bud amidst the desolation to show life really can exist anywhere. This is similar to Stephen’s journey in The Samurai’s Garden. This novel is about an ailing Chinese boy named Stephen who goes to a Japanese village during a time of war between Japan and China to recover from his disease. By forming bonds with several locals and listening to their stories, he quickly matures into a young adult. Throughout the novel, Gail Tsukiyama shows how disease forces Stephen into isolation; however, Matsu’s garden and Sachi lead him out of solitude.

The illustrations should help readers anticipate the unfolding of a story’s action and its climax.

The Samurai’s Garden, written by Gail Tsukiyama, incorporates the various aspect of myth throughout the plot, from how the Japanese worship to the rituals they perform. Stephan-san, a young Chinese man, when he first arrived in Tarumi Japan, discovered the Japanese ritual of being clean. The Japanese in this book had a strong desire to be sanitary in every aspect of their life both physically and morally. They used to be physically clean to visualize being spiritually clean. Another part of the mythology in this novel was the worshipping of the kami deities. These deities dwelled in the shrine near Tarumi and Stephan-san along with Matsu traveled to the shrine to worship and pray to the kami fox deity, the Inari. Two facets of The

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Even though the two gardens are different like how people are different they both give insight to what the gardeners are thinking. Even though the gardeners dictate what happens both are students when it comes to the master of nature mother nature herself. This reminder is shown when the had to replant “ some pines and cleaned the pond” even making a new bridge after a storm. This also shows that new beginnings are always possible. Just like in the book Matsu disappears when Stephen is young and had his secrets that were revealed “The garden is a word filled with secrets. Slowly, I see more each day.” (page 31, Tsukiyama) “A wooden bridge arched across its width, and lines of odd-shaped, water worn stones created two paths, one leading through the secluded garden right up to the front door, while the other disappeared around the back of the house.” (page 10, Tsukiyama) Gardens are integrated into Matsu and Sachi’s lives to enter into someone's life/home, first have to know the

The author of this book did make use of literary elements to tell the story. These elements are also used in other picture books such as lines, shapes, color and speech bubble. The book is a graphic novel and dialogue takes majority of the writing in the book. The dialogical and concise style of writing of the author including the pictures

Secrets fill the garden. In Gail Tsukiyama’s novel “The Samurai’s Garden”, she uses metaphors to show the audience the garden and its’ curator in a mysterious light. Tsukiyama’s character Stephen gazes upon Matsu’s garden with wonder and amazement. He compares it to another world, “The garden is a world filled with secrets… Matsu’s garden whispers at you, never shouts; it leads you down a path hoping for more, as if everything is seen, yet hidden” (Samurai 31). Tsukiyama creates another world within the fences of the garden. She integrates the secrets of its’ caretaker into the aura of the garden. The metaphor to another world impacts the reader by allowing the reader to see the mystery and beauty that shrouds it. The cloak of beauty shows

Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden is set in 1930s Japan, the theme of war and peace is developed through Character interaction. Characters in the story have very different reactions to the same circumstances. Through the character of Stephen, one can conclude that outside forces do not control a person’s life because in life, people can take what has been given to them and do with it what they wish. In other words, life is what you make of it. Even though the war in China is very important to Stephen, he does not let it interfere with his descisions in Tarumi.

Distinctively visual texts aim to manipulate the we perceive images critically affecting our interpretation of events and people we meet in our lives. Distinctively visual techniques are utilised in the ‘Run Lola Run’ directed by Tom Tykwer and the picture book ‘Red Tree’ written by Sean Tan. The way the distinctively visual is shown throughout these texts is through the use of motifs, different angle shots, colours, lighting and reading paths. These techniques aim to show the important themes in both texts such as time, hope and love.

significant because it shows that the book is trying to draw a picture in the reader's mind about

In the book “The Samurai’s Garden” by Gail Tsukiyama, a common occurrence that appears in the book is comparisons of a certain character to an Samurai. Since even the title refers to Samurai it leaves the reader wondering, “Who is the real Samurai?” The book gives a lot of evidence for people to think that different characters could be the Samurai. The characters that people mainly think are the “real” Samurai are the main three characters, Stephen, Matsu, and Sachi. All of them carry traits of a Samurai, but at the same time there’s plenty of things to disprove most of them as being the Samurai. In the book Sachi does overcome a tragedy in her life that a lot of people would struggle with but

The African American Cultural Gardens are situated on a four-acre sloping site, extending from Wheelock Avenue at the highest point and down to Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive at the St. Clair exit. The Gardens, dedicated to the past, present and future of the African American community, is one of the more than 30 established or planned ethic cultural gardens that are part of the 100-year-old Cleveland Cultural Gardens and its representative organization, the Cleveland Federation of Cultural Gardens.

One of the 20th century’s most important and influential modernist poets was Hilda Doolittle, more commonly known as H.D. While other artists struggled to find a new mode of expression, H.D. found imagism and created intense poems delving into very specific depictions. In “Sheltered Garden,” H.D. employs intense imagery using nature in order to put forth an opinion or viewpoint, which is also highlighted by another poem titled, “Sea Rose.” By analyzing these two poems, one can more fully comprehend the modernist movement/mentality and how H.D. shaped her own form of poetry. In “Sheltered Garden,” the poet uses the image of a garden to not only push against society’s constraint of women, but also its imposed ideas of beauty, creating tension between the natural and the unnatural.