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The Weaver Festival Phenomenon By Yoshimoto Summary

Decent Essays

Yoshimoto embraces magic realism to highlight Japanese views on grief by interweaving “The Weaver Festival Phenomenon” and the scenic images of this event to convey the sorrowful mood (Yoshimoto 147). Yoshimoto describes the Weaver Festival Phenomenon as “the boundary between dream and waking blurred” (Yoshimoto 140). Yoshimoto utilizes imagery through the observations of her grieving characters to produce the image of confusion and hesitation exhibited by many people in a grieving state of mind globally. Yoshimoto’s depiction of grief within Japanese society highlights what Japanese society considers to be out of norm for their social harmony. However, Yoshimoto contrasts Japanese society’s belief that there cannot be any interruption, like grieving the death of a loved one, in a harmonious Japanese society with ‘The …show more content…

Urara and Satsuki experience the phenomenon at the same place and time allowing them to understand each other in a higher and unspeakable level. Magic realism established in the novella through the Weaver Festival Phenomenon is explained by Urara as “the dimension we’re in—time, space, all that stuff—is going to move, shift a little” (Yoshimoto 144). Yoshimoto’s imagery of how the phenomenon changes the dimension and gravity of where they stand represents the chaos and whirlwind of emotions that will occur when being with an individual’s past. The em-dashes furthers this since Yoshimoto conveys the thought process of Urara as she tries to explain what it will feel like. The event takes hold by the “residual thoughts of a person who has died meet the sadness of someone left behind, and the vision is produced”; therefore, Yoshimoto utilizes magic realism to demonstrate the strong energy of grief

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