He-y, Come On Ou-t!

– Shinichi Hoshi
Background Information
Shinichi Hoshi was born on September 6, 1926, in Tokyo, Japan. The story was published in the
year 1989. The story has social criticism with an ecological message.

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy and Satire

Point of View: The story is narrated in Third Person Omniscient point of view
Setting: The story takes place in a Japanese Village in 20th Century.

Characters
Protagonist: No obvious protagonist
Antagonist: All the characters in the story who irresponsibly pollute the environment

Character Analysis
Concessionaire – Flat and static
Traits: Money minded, cunning

Scientists: Static and Flat

Traits: Stubborn, proud, and egoistic

Workman – flat and static

Traits: Ignorant and innocent

Mayor – flat and static

Traits: Simple-minded and ignorant

Reporters- flat and static

Traits: curious, careless, and nosy

Youngman- flat and static

Traits: Curious, irresponsible, and carefree

Old man- flat and static

Traits: superstitious but wise

Plot
Exposition
The typhoon ends and villagers find mysterious hole right below where the shrine once was.

Rising Action
Different people start to investigate the hole. When nothing was known about the hole major and
villagers gives the hole to the concessionaire.

Climax
Village and city start developing. The construction worker while taking his break hears someone
shout and later fails to notice pebble skim past by him.

Falling Action and Denouement

The story ends with abruptly leaving the reader to guess and figure out the ending.
Summary
 The landslide in typhoon sweep away shrine creating a mysterious hole.
 The villagers discuss over to repair and start rebuilding the shrine. While villagers
exchanged their view, one of them notices the hole.
 A young man leans and shouts “He-y, come on Ou-t!” into the hole thinking it might be a
foxhole.
 When no one answers, he throws in a pebble, despite the warning of old man.
 The story of bottomless hole spreads and attracts attention of different stakeholders:
scientists, media, concessionaires, etc.
 These people try different methods to measure the depth of the hole and understand the
phenomenon of hole itself but fails.
 Scientist cannot comprehend the hole and the depth and simply says to fill it up.
 A man (concessionaire) than comes forward and puts forward a proposal. He would fill
the hole for them and build new shrine attached with meeting hall closer to their village.
Villagers agree and mayor gives his permission.
 The concessionaire gains control of the hole and ask his cohorts to conduct campaign in
city about hole tilling company.
 The campaign is successful and then dumping of dangerous nuclear waste and all
unwanted waste begin inclusive of old classified documents, corpses, weapons etc.
 The hole shows no sign of filling up. The area grows and develops. The city becomes
clean with all waste disappearing into the hole.
 People find easy solution for unwanted waste and they keep expanding their city.
 One day, a worker taking break atop the high steel frame of a new building under
construction hears a voice, “He-y, come on Ou-t!” followed by a pebble which he fail to
notice.
The story ends there, leaving the reader to imagine the chaos and destruction that will follow as
the other contents of the hole make their way back to the people.

Literary Devices
Symbolism
Sl.
Symbol Possible meaning of symbol
No
1 Hole Earth, city people contribute more towards the
pollution than the people in village
2 Typhoon It could symbolize the early warning of
environmental destruction
3 Shrine Shrine symbolizes people’s faith in god, which is
diminishing as time passes. (they are not sure when
was it constructed, and where exactly it was
located)
4 Pebble Unforeseen danger, a small thing can trigger a
bigger problem
5 Old man superstitious, however wise
6 Young People Curious, irresponsible and carefree
7 Reporter Opportunist, nosy, careless, hasty
8 Echo Unseen danger
9 Concessionaire Opportunist, careless, and inconsiderate people who
is always after making profit at any cost
10 Village People Oblivious and Uneducated, who are easily pleased
and fooled by cunning people
 11 Scientists People filled with ego and pride
12 Government Authorities Corrupted officials in any office
13 Classified Unnecessary bureaucracy and corruption in the
Documents/counterfeit bills government
14 Diaries/old Photographs Unfaithful and secretive nature of people
15 Worker atop the building Innocent younger generations who face the
consequences of ancestor’s deeds

Satire
The story satirizes the concept of human being destroying the environment without realizing the
eventual consequences.

Situational Irony
The people think they have found an easy solution for the dangerous waste. They keep
discarding the waste into hole without realizing the eventual consequences.

Statement from text to support the Irony

i. The government sated: “there would be absolutely no above-ground contamination
for several thousand years”
ii. “The hole gave peace of mind to the dwellers of the city.”

Dramatic Irony
City dwellers and villagers fail to notice the pebble skim past from the sky. They fail to notice
what goes around comes around.

Foreshadowing
The young man shouts and throws pebble into the hole, at which the old man says, that might
bring curse upon them. This foreshadows the impending danger that falls upon them at the end.

Conflict
External: Man Vs Nature
 Characters in the story try to figure out the depth and the hole itself
 In the end, characters will have to deal with the garbage they threw into the
hole.

Theme
We should never try to get rid of our problems in the easiest way because they come right back.
We should face the problem and try to solve it instead of running away from it. Best proverb to
describe the theme would be “What goes around comes around”