Thousand Cranes By Yasunari Kawabata

Nobody fully understands what drives people to undertake a mission, but it often causes people to take many risks. For example, Farah Ahmedi climbed a mountain on a prosthetic leg with a sick mother just to reach freedom. Rikki-Tikki fought for his life to save his family. John Steinbeck eavesdropped on people's conversations just to get material for his book. These stories show different people who had each set a goal for themselves. Ahmedi and Rikki-Tikki fought for their lives to survive and save their loved ones. While Steinbeck traveled to great lengths to write his book. Their goals may be different but they all had set a goal and they all eventually accomplished their goal.

In her novel, When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka develops the concepts of memory and identity as they applied to Japanese Americans 70 years ago. Before WWII, the featured family saw themselves as American rather than Japanese. Three years of internment later, they are not so sure. Their heritage, an aspect of their identity once only present in their heirlooms and the food they ate, had been perverted by society into a monstrosity malicious enough to justify their mass incarceration. The disparity between the life they once lived and the life the life they lived in the camps leaves them hollow, shells of their former selves, even when they finally return home. Thus, with her skillful incorporation of motifs of darkness and

In Robert Cormier’s novel, We All Fall Down, is a young-adult thriller that explores the evil side of humanity through a number of corrupt characters. Cormier, to a large extent, accurately depicts manipulative and dishonest behaviour whilst also showing the evil lurking within the prominent characters of Harry Flowers, Buddy Walker and Mickey Stallings who showcase the dark side of humanity. Cormier explores this through Harry Flower’s manipulative actions that result in the suffering of others. Additionally, the constant dishonest behaviour is shown predominantly through the main protagonist of Buddy Walker, who deceives the one he loves. Cormier continues to depict the evil lurking in society through the theme of appearance

The Open Boat, written by Stephen Crane is discusses the journey of four survivors that were involved in a ship wreck. The oiler, the cook, the captain, and the correspondent are the survivors that make onto a dingey and struggle to survive the roaring waves of the ocean. They happen to come across land after being stranded in the ocean for two days and start to feel a sense of hope that they would be rescued anytime soon. They began feeling down as they realize nobody was going to rescue them and make an attempt to reach shore. The story discusses an external conflict of man vs nature to help state clearly the central idea. The central idea of the story conveys man’s success against nature when ones’ abilities are combined together to increase the chances of survival. The use of 3rd person limited omniscience and character analysis helps to explain how the journey of the men’s survival to get out of the ocean and reach shore is able to succeed while Stephen Crane uses symbolism to demonstrate the unity created amongst the survivors.

Do you know what a Japan family goes through once they move in America back then? In the novel,” Under the Blood Red Sun”, Graham Salisbury writes about a Japanese family moving into Hawaii and what activities and hobbies they do. The Japanese army attacks Pearl Harbor and because of this event their racer pigeons and Tomi’s Papa and Grandpa are taken away. The author teaches the reader about how everything isn’t fair, bravery, and to treat others the way you want to be treated.

Through her adolescence, Jeanne is ashamed of being Japanese. At Jeanne’s award dinner/ ceremony, her father mortify her, by creating a perceptible array between her and the other families.   “He was unforgivably a foreigner then, foreign to them, foreign to me, foreign to everyone, foreign to everyone but Mama, who sat next to him smiling, with pleased modesty.   Twelve years old at the time, I wanted to scream.   I wanted to slide out of sign under the table and dissolve.” (168) Jeanne wants to be out of sight because she is so humiliated by Papa’s traditional Japanese bow.

Throughout history artists have used art as a means to reflect the on goings of the society surrounding them. Many times, novels serve as primary sources in the future for students to reflect on past history. Students can successfully use novels as a source of understanding past events. Different sentiments and points of views within novels serve as the information one may use to reflect on these events. Natsume Soseki’s novel Kokoro successfully encapsulates much of what has been discussed in class, parallels with the events in Japan at the time the novel takes place, and serves as a social commentary to describe these events in Japan at the time of the Mejeii Restoration and beyond. Therefore, Kokoro successfully serves as a primary

Scarlet Benoit set out to find her grandmother who had been kidnapped for weeks. Walt Masters wanted to warn Loren Hall that stampeders were planning to steal his claim. Farah Ahmedi undertook the mission to escape Afghanistan with a prosthetic leg and her mother. However, all three fought to better the lives of themselves and/or others.

Theme: is the conflict between generations in changing Japan. Meaning 
the ways of past generations are giving way to new values that have not been fully developed in the younger generations. One exanple of this being that suicide, carried out in the face of defeat have now lost of its meaning and honor in younger generations.

The Whale Rider by Niki Caro is a film about a young girl, Paikea’s journey to acceptance from her grandfather. This film explores many themes such as feminism, family and conflict. One of the main conflicts explored throughout this film is the conflict between Nanny Flowers and Koro, Paikea’s grandparents. Conflict is an important issue in this film because it causes rupture among an already fractured family.

Khaled Hosseini’s sophomore novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, shares a setting with his previous novel, the turmoil of the recent decades of Afghanistan 's existence. However, despite similar themes, Hosseini once again manages to craft a story that is as engaging as it is poignant, as compassionate as it is critical, and as thoughtful as it is visceral.

Holding Onto the Air an autobiography by Suzanne Farrell takes the reader backstage in the dramatic life of the world-renowned Balanchine ballerina. From her childhood in Cincinnati to her retirement from ballet in 1989, Farrell's story is truly a remarkable one. The book describes at length her time with the New York City Ballet as well as her complex relationship with the legendary Balanchine. Although Mrs. Farrell goes a bit too far into the ballet descriptions, her beautiful imagery allows reader to experience the joy of performing on stage.

Japan, forced to rebuild itself from the ashes of defeat, was occupied by Americans in the aftermath of World War II. Although it was commonly perceived through the victors’ eyes, in John W. Dower’s novel, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Dower summarized his studies of Occupied Japan and the impact of war on Japanese society in the view of both the conqueror and the defeated. He demonstrated the “Transcending Despair” (p. 85) of the Japanese people through their everyday lives in the early stages of the occupation. In chapter three, Dower attempted to comprehend the hopes and dreams – as well as the hopelessness and realities – of the Japanese who were in a state of exhaustion and despair. In chapter four, due partly to the food shortage, crime rates rose as people began to steal. Women turned to prostitution while men turned to the black market. Some Japanese were so desperate that they stripped out of their clothing and exchanged it for food. Dower vividly conveyed the depth of loss and confusion that Japan experienced. On the other hand, Kasutori culture flourished in the 1950s as sexually oriented entertainments dominated the commercial world. In chapter five, the people of Japan turned wartime slogans into slogans for reconstruction and peace. They used witty defeat jokes as a way to escape despair. Even though they were defeated, the people of Japan pushed through the misery and sought to reinvent their identity as illustrated through prostitution, the black market, and “Bridges of Language” (p. 168).

In Kawabata’s Thousand Cranes, identity becomes inescapable and transiently shared across generations and people, rather than belonging uniquely to individuals. The lingering presence of Mr. Mitani after his death reminds Kikuji of all the moral inadequacies Mitani possessed. As he begins to exhibit these inadequacies himself, Kikuji attempts to hide his imperfections by intoxicating himself and engaging in lustful affairs, but ultimately the cycle of shame continues. Ignoring or hiding from the world is not a sufficient escape from the shame associated with one’s identity. I will argue that Kawabata uses the art of subtle cues in order to convey that shame can be transferred, and shame must be confronted directly to overcome vulnerabilities

Whenever something goes wrong, people tend to turn to the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” to turn the situation around. But what if your life was interlocked with the fate of your ancestors? The path is already ridden for you. In the novel Thousand Cranes by Yasanari Kawabata, he manifests the idea of fate and the role it plays in a second generation’s life. No matter the action one takes to become disparate, he/she is already bound to a predetermined outcome. The steps taken to drive oneself away from the first generations’ previous life prove to be in vain. Throughout the novel, Kikuji is an impotent victim of his father. He is a victim of his father’s mistress, and of the villagers’ impression of him. He is unable to mark