Themes Of Loneliness And Solitude

The narrator, Katsu Kokichi, was a low ranking samurai during the end of the Tokugawa Period. He was the youngest out of all his siblings and as a child he ran away from home multiple times. Kokichi told his readers how he had to beg for food and even began to pose as a representative to a feudal lord. The readers learn that he has a wife and children but he often times would beat her and he also never got an official promotion and was forced to obtain a low income by dealing swords, selling protection to shopkeepers, and sometimes using his muscle (getting into fights) and tricking others. In Kokichi’s lifetime, readers see a man whose life was filled with dishonesty, corruption, poverty, blackmail, and even lawbreaking. His story shows the reality of a samurai’s life during the end of the Tokugawa

The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama tells the story of a young man who is sent away from his friends and family to a small village in Japan, in the attempt to get better from his illness. Through his self isolation, Stephen is able to learn from the two elderly people he meets there, and slowly comes to accept himself for who is he, regardless of what other people thought. Through the use of internal and external conflict in The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama uses Stephen’s character, specifically through his interactions with Matsu and Sachi, to convey the message that sometimes one will need to leave what they are comfortable with, and place themselves into isolation in the attempt to rediscover who they are while still knowing that

Oftentimes, people confuse loneliness with the state of being alone. When looking at the overall big picture, it is easy to forget that loneliness is temporary. People are not alone because even back in primitive times, they bore a natural instinct to strive for companionship in order to survive. Human imagination creates companions in cases of extreme loneliness which contradicts the state of being alone. Due to societal and family standards, others in society make it practically impossible to be alone. Mankind often goes through life without realizing the overwhelming amount of human contact and support. People are never alone, they are just simply

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

Characters overcome what life brings them and finding meaning in the things that they have in The Samurai's Garden by Tsukiyama. Stephan who experiences this watches as Matsu and Sachi work in their gardens. The gardens represent their gardener’s soul because they nurture and dictate everything that happens within the gardens walls.

During Samurai’s Garden the topic of isolation is exemplified through the characters Stephen and Sachi. Both of these characters are isolated in their own ways and have both differing and similar effects because of this. However, they are both individually isolated for valid reasons that were mostly out of their control. As such, this isolation has caused them to become enlightened as to who they truly are and the new identity that they have obtained.

Nouwen (1975) describes loneliness as a universal experience that affects even the most intimate relationships. He identifies loneliness as one of the universal sources of human suffering. Some of the mental suffering in the

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.

Katsu Kokichi’s autobiography, “Musui’s Story,” documents the life of a samurai in Japan’s late Tokugawa period who adopted the name Musui in his retirement. Katsu is something of a black sheep within his family, being largely uneducated and deemed unfit for the bureaucratic office 's samurai of his standing were expected to hold. As such, he typifies in many ways the lower ronin, or masterless samurai, many of whom famously led roaming, directionless lives and wreaked havoc among the urban poor and merchant classes. The novel addresses the decaying power of samurai throughout the Tokugawa period and depicts their struggle to find purpose. Throughout the story, Katsu is impacted by three interconnected systems of power that impact his life

In Giles Milton’s novel, Samurai William, the reader is taken to the other side of the globe to experience the history of old world Japan. Though out the book, Milton provides reason for complex historical events and actions, while still communicating the subtleties and mysterious customs of the Japanese. The novel also closely examines the wide range of relationships between different groups of Europeans and Asians, predominantly revolving around the protagonist, William Adams. The book documents the successes and failures that occur between the two civilizations, then links them back to either the positive or negative relationship they have. As the book goes on, the correlation is obvious. Milton shows us the extreme role that religion,

The Samurai Shortstop is a novel that shows the political effects of the Meiji Constitution and the social effects of the reformation of Japan. The story opens with the protagonist, Toyo, whose uncle has committed seppuku, a ritual suicide. The first line, “Toyo watched carefully as his uncle prepared to kill himself ”, was intriguing because it leaves the reader wondering why he was going to kill himself and why Toyo wasn’t stopping his uncle’s suicide. Toyo, like many boys of the time period, is passionate about, baseball. He is constantly pressured by his father to not adopt Western worldviews. The author does an excellent job of staying neutral and does not show bias towards either side. The author shows the fact that they were

Yuzan Daidoji, Oscar Ratti, and Thomas Cleary. The Code of the Samurai. Boston: Tuttle, 1999. 10-44.

To be lonely is an easy thing, being alone is another matter entirely. To understand this, first one must understand the difference between loneliness and being alone. To be alone means that your are not in the company of anyone else. You are one. But loneliness can happen anytime, anywhere. You can be lonely in a crowd, lonely with friends, lonely with family. You can even be lonely while with loved ones. For feeling lonely, is in essence a feeling of being alone. As thought you were one and you feel as though you will always be that way. Loneliness can be one of the most destructive feelings humans are capable of feeling. For loneliness can lead to depression, suicide, and even to raging out and hurting friends and/or

Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro illustrates the struggles of a young man (the narrator) who was alienated from his family and his loneliness as he pursues acceptance and love by building a friendship with an elder.  As a parallel to this, the elder (Sensei), sought an end to his social isolation through his love to a woman whose qualities were not tainted by modernity. K, Sensei’s childhood friend, had also hinted his struggles in isolation as he tried to keep to his idealistic principles. This paper will analyze the isolation and loneliness that was faced by the Japanese people during a period of significant modernization and how they approached it and attempted to solve the conflict between tradition and modernity.

The Japanese people, although of different classes, are united by a fierce pride for self and culture. Although many of the samurai are starving and poor, they are too proud to beg for food, or even accept it as payment for services rendered. Some of the samurai who refuse to help the village do so because they are too proud to work for such a lowly cause. The farmers’ pride in their village is seen through their efforts to defend their village and livelihood in the face of the bandits. This pride is even more evident as those farmers who live outside the protective wall built around the village for the battle attempt to mutiny against the samurai and defend only their homes.