B.

Feminism
Psychological – The motivation of Komako in keeping relationships
with Shimamura as seen in the novel of Yasunari Kawabata the Snow
Country.
- a
Formalism – the symbolism structure of the poem

III. Analysis/Argument – Core of the essay

Study of the structure of the novel

The novel “Snow Country” by the 1968 Nobel Prize winner for
Literature Yasunari Kawabata has a meandering and rhizomatic
structure. Its plotless composition was inspired by his
familiarity of Japan’s poem known for its brevity, like the
haiku. With this miniaturization, and, in doing so, however, it
creates a larger map and with certain density. The entire plot
reveals irregularity. The plot is thin and lacks those details
that give the story a true beginning and conclusion. Many of
Kawabata’s contemporary authors argue the he “has not written
even a single novel” because he seems to be not interested at all
in such important, the elements of a novel, its influence on
reader, and conflict between individuals. This argument, reckon
the opus destitute of meaningful plot and deficient as a novel,
one can attempt to justify Yasunari Kawabata’s composition as
unconventional and not constraint by the Aristotelian plot
structure Kawabata's style of writing can be attributed to his
knowledge with the tanka, haiku, and renga short forms of
Japanese poetic heritage. He produced a large number of "palm of
the hand stories," or extremely brief stories. Due to their great
length, they frequently lack a strong plot and instead seek for
an impressionistic, poetic effect. In a way, he created some of
his books by weaving together short stories in the style of a
renga. For these reasons—classical and contemporary—the absence
of a plot that flows naturally in many of Kawabata's works should
not be viewed as a flaw in his writing style but rather as an
idiosyncratic tactic or convention used for aesthetic purposes.
As there is no real conclusion and a sense of incompleteness
prevails because the structure of the narrative as a whole has a
fragmentary quality, this study also used the new criticism as a
type of formalism to study the elements of this opus particularly
the imagery and symbolism and emphasize how they work together to
create this magnum opus.

Several levels of this symbolism involve the two female host

characters, there are contrasting symbolic meaning of their
characters and it can be also traced or mapped through the
elemental and cosmic scenery from the novel. The novel’s rich
imagery does not only intend to describe the settings of the
story which is the snow country but its suggestiveness can be
also applied to represent the opposing character of the two
female characters. To give a background of the setting, Snow
country is an area of Japan that is arguably, the snowiest region
of the world for of its latitude. This is an environment that
"suggests long, gray winters, tunnels 'under the snow, dark
houses with rafters black from the smoke of winter, The title
snow country does not only suggest the image and landscape of an
environment that is innate in Japan but also reflect what should
be feel about the story, darkness and wasted beauty, run like a
ground bass throughout the narrative and we can perhaps feel most
strongly the coldness of the relationship of the character as the
story develop.
The two important figures in the novel are the two female
characters named Komako and Yuko. Komako is a geisha, a skilled
entertainer who engages in amusing arts and sells her developed
skills to a costumer Shimamura, for example, who can afford her
time-limited service. Yoko, on the other hand, is portrayed as a
girl who lacks substance. She has no specific skills, except from
her claim to have worked as a would-be nurse in Tokyo, and has
alternated between non-field odd agricultural jobs and non-
customer-serving functions at a hot spring inn. Yoko is
essentially an artless late teenager whose immature, yet ardent
thinking verges on a childlike simplicity, whereas Komako is a
young adult well-versed in the ways of the world. Komako's fated
maturity as a woman of sad circumstances is foreshadowed by
numerous intermingled references, including those to dead insects
and a senior coworker named Kikuyu who quits her job due to
issues with a man. As a result, they are in stark contrast
in terms of employment, financial obligations, and maturity.
Komako, in the perspective of Shimamura, represent cleanness for
the better part of the story even though her position is
precarious and somehow decaying before our eyes. She cannot be as
pure as the virgin figure Yoko because she is a woman of the
performing arts, and Shimamura never refers to her as being
beautiful the way he does with Yoko. But from the very first
second of their encounter, she is regarded as being exceptionally
clean—both in the impression she makes and in the orderliness of
her daily existence. In the beginning, Shimamura is drawn to
Komako because he believes that she is too pure of an object to
sate his repressed needs.
The snow which is innate in Japan’s Snow Country is a device to
symbolize Komako’s cleanness on the surface as white as the snow
that is often associated with her carefully powdered skin. The
cosmetic powder is applied on the exposed face and neck in order
to cover, in her case, not a dark complexion or a rough skin but
fresh redness of the healthy body. The color is inborn to Komako
who grew up in the snowy mountain area, often enhanced by
drunkenness or a sudden shift of emotions. At their reunion after
a lapse of several months, Shimamura finds a part of her face
“red under the thick powder,” which reminds him of “the snow-
country cold,” and yet he feels “a certain warmth in it.” In
fact, aware of her warm bodily temperature, she even calls
herself, when heavily inebriated, a metaphorical “pillow of
fire.” The underlying red visible through a clean white layer is
indicative of her robust, unspoiled health that dispels her
professional stain and, more significantly, of her intense
passion and fundamental life force.
Another device which is prevalent in the story is the two mirror
which intended to symbolize and highlight the contrasting
portrayal of the two female character. Evidently, the two mirror
scenes early in the novel, each of which reveals the reflected
image of a female character set against the surrounding
landscape, are intended to enhance the two women’s marked
difference that is hinted in the first mirror scene. Yoko’s eye
glimmers ephemerally with a superimposed distant fire while the
rest of her translucent image floats amidst the indistinct,
constantly moving wilderness. Komako’s body that exudes vitality
with red luster forms a vivid, matching contrast to the radiant
snow, thereby emphasizing its solid contour. While Yoko’s essence
is reducible to a cold, aloof light, Komako stands for the soft,
clean, thick layer of snow that covers their village during a
long winter. Together, clear, distant light and white, embracing
snow constitute a cloudless, serene winter night of the region,
such as what the evening in the ending would be like if it were
not for the fire. At the same time, like a hot spring in the
snowy locale, both cases contain a paradox of inherent warmth in
a cold element, dually as characters and symbols of purity and
cleanness. No matter how remote and heatless the wild or starry
light appears, it originates in fire. As to Komako who “hides a
consuming fire within her cool, clean exterior,”25 redness
inherently underlies the white, snowy covering. Because of the
vehement passion inside, her initial, strenuous effort to
maintain a professional distance from Shimamura fails dismally.
For all her isolationist demeanor, Yoko interests Shimamura at
first with her tender, undistracted nursing of the sick Yukio on
the train, then with her frequent visits to his grave and
motherly care of the innkeeper’s small daughter in bathing.
Komako also likes looking after the same girl and other children
In some point, although the two female character, Yoko and Komako
portray remarkable contrasting character, they are meanwhile
presented not as two opposing incompatibles, in fact, they both
share certain traits that compliment each other. They are like
symbiotic biological species in an ecosystem, harmoniously
rivalry with each other, and despite their strained symbiotic
relationship, they need each other. It was evident when they live
both together with Yukio, until he dies in the house of his
mother who is Komako’s music teacher. Komako, who considers Yoko
likely to be her future burden, apparently supports Yoko at least
partially on a financial basis even when they no longer share a
living space. In conversation with Shimamura, each expresses her
concern with the other’s future welfare, hoping that Shimamura
will take good care of the other woman.
As part of the fragmentary quality of the novel is the seemingly
unrelated occurrence of the Chijimi cloth episode in the story,
which can entirely set the tone of the relationship between
Shimamura and komako. Though it may at first seem like a mostly
irrelevant interlude to the story of Shimamura's and Komako's
romance, the reflection on Chijimi cloth, its production, and
eventual use by worldly men such as Shimamura, encapsulates the
meaning of the whole story. The young women who made Chijimi in
the long, desolate winters of the snow country would have had few
other opportunities to expend their energies and achieve some
sense of fulfillment other than making the beautiful cloth; but
this in turn would end up as the playthings of wealthy men, who
would find the cloth attractive for its light coolness but unable
to discern its weighty emotional background. Shimamura is in the
unique position, as an intellectual, of being aware of the entire
history, and yet, because of his dilettante personality, he is
unable to return any feelings. And so, Komako's love, like a
piece of Chijimi, is worn and then discarded; shimamura himself
is struck by the thought that the cloth must last much longer
than most romances.
In addition to the contradictory aspect, which recalls a
comparable trait between the two female character, chijimi, give
its characteristic coolness and cleanness to the two women's
astonishing extensions, ground-covering snow and the icy air
brought by the star-lit, clear night sky and it was evident by
how this chijimi cloth produce. Chijimi cloth is done only where
there is snow, because the production mainly dependent on a snow
in every process, it was woven, washed and bleached in the snow
from the first spinning of the thread Every winter, Shimamura
takes his chijimi clothes to the snow country to be bleached in a
traditional, time-consuming procedure that involves soaking them
overnight and washing them early in the morning for several days.
Compositionally, the snow as essential part in the making of
chijimi depicts Yoko’s coolness, while Komako’s cleanness reflect
on the manner where Shimamura brought his garment to the snow
country to have it clean, meanwhile, the above statements which
states that the contrasting aspect of Komako as a cleanness was
reflected simultaneously on Shimamura’s visit to Japan’s snow
country where he was initially attracted to komako, and describe
clean in the impression she portray as well as in the tidiness of
her everyday life. Shimamura also finds her too clean as an
object to satisfy stifled desires, the production of chijimi and
the rebleaching of his garment implies what he feels when he
visits snow country, when he is with Komako, he seems being
cleansed, too, by the dirt of the summer, and that is because of
Komako and her character as cleanness.
It is clear that Shimamura perceive Komako as a kind of human
Chijimi, and that he expects from her not only sensual/sensuous
pleasure but also a sense of being cleansed by an embrace that is
at once cool and warm. It is with Komako, alone, when he felt
recleaned again and in the snow country away from the urbanity of
Tokyo where Shimamura lives. He escapes from the grayish routine
of Tokyo life to a remote hot spring, an area in the Snow
Country, primarily to enjoy Komako’s company, and by this time,
he feels as he was purified again from the contaminants of Tokyo
life, thus we can associate it to chijimi cloth, it is only in
through the snow that chijimi cloth cleaned, likewise it was only
to Komako where Shimamura felt cleaned.
The marking of the contrasting aspects of the two female host
characters in the story can also be applied to the two male
characters, Shimamura and Yukio, which creates a double effect.
These two men are placed between the two female competing yet
complementary principles, thus laying out a triangular
relationship. As to Komako’s engagement to Yukio, it remains
ambiguous and fragmentary. However, the story provides relative
yet strong points that Komako was once engaged to Yukio,
including the rumored that Yukio had been Komako’s fiancé, which
she strongly denies. Additionally, Yukio was on the first page of
the very first volume of her diary, as Komako loves keeping a
diary. The diary tells a lot about her relationship with Yukio;
during the climactic scene of the story, she says that she
doesn’t mind sending her diary to Shimamura if he is a good
person at heart. Therefore, the diary symbolizes the love that
Komako has. Indeed, if Yukio was ascribed to her diary, it only
means that he was once engaged to Yukio. Apparently, during the
death pains of Yukio, he pleads to see Komako, but she refuses
to. This means that he still values Komako.
The presence of the two women to Yukio’s life is supposed to have
an effect of sweeping off the city dirt that has accumulated on
him. On a symbolic level, however, he cannot sustain the combined
intensity of two opposing forces of femininity, which, instead of
removing the cause of his damaged health, consumes him gradually
to his ultimate demise. After his death, without reflecting on
herself, Komako half-jokingly calls Yoko frighteningly jealous by
nature to the point of killing the object of her affection.
The unusual come about of the fire in the winter evening on the
last part of the story is part of its irregularity, calling fire
in the snow unrealistic. This climactic scene set out in the
story’s cold and snowy landscape, is evident of the story’s
meandering of events and disjoined sections, such us the
unpredicted Chijimi episode. However, the novel’s strings of
events provide more image to the story and associations thus
creating a coherent whole, the unrealistic fire scene corresponds
well with the beginning of the story, where Shimamura perceived a
wild fire through Yoko’s eye and it seemed to him like a cold
fire, thus foreshadows the last part of the story; the death of
Yoko in the fire in the cold snowy country.
The fire is a symbol in the story that does not only utilize to
give associations and sense of completeness to the story’s
fragmented quality, but also mobilized as symbolization of the
emotional attributes with which the characters are equipped.
Komako, a character of a pure hearted woman, despite being
decaying before our eyes due to her job-a geisha, dedicated her
true love to Shimamura whilst she gets nothing in return, her
love is beautiful but wasted and unrequited. The fire in the snow
symbolizes Komako’s unrequited passion, more so when she
screamed, ignited her unreciprocated love.
It can be noticed earlier that Shimamura eschew himself from the
urbanity of Tokyo to found sort of cleansing to the snow country,
aside from Komako’s cleanness as a source of cleansing, fire has
also the ability to eliminate the contaminants, the fire scene in
the story has fundamentally granted Shimamura’s wish, his
consciousness undergoes purifying and rebirth, and realize that
it is one’s best interest for him to leave.

Thus, the fire scene is a sense that the story is complete. First
and foremost, Shimamura is a married man with children, but
because he perceived his life as monotone, he lost interest and
sight of what he was settled into. He chose to make a series of
visits to the snow country, where he met Komako, with whom he had
a relationship stretching over the years, and got interested in
another woman named Yoko, whom he saw on his way to the snow
country. He admits his feelings to Komako, and Komako, in her
belief, thus dedicates her true love to Shimamura, which in
return is unreciprocated. Shimamura is not able to make a
lifetime commitment, to the point that he is unable to invest
himself emotionally in affairs. Thus, this attribute of
Shimamura's is a shade of his apathetic personality. Moreso, he
lacks the ability to understand others' feelings. The fire scene
is set out to demonstrate that the time is ripe to release
Shimamura within his ambivalent characteristics and that he must
leave Komako and the snow country and go back to his own family
in Tokyo.

Since the manner of the composition of this novel was inspired by

the author’s familiarity with haiku, the opus is rich in natural
scenes, which suggests an overarching meaning. For example, the
changing seasons of the snow country, which is innate in Japan,
reflect the changes in the relationship between Shimamura and
Komako, which is the central focus of the novel. Each season has
specific characteristics that are parallel to the relationship
between the two. The spring is a season of new beginnings because
new sprouts emerge after the winter blanketed the land with snow
and destroyed the plants. Shimamura initially visits Komako in
the spring, and the two form a connection because Shimamura
perceives Komako as a new sprout and believes it is his
responsibility to protect her. Spring is also the start of the
blossoming of their love. Fall is a season of change, both in
nature and in relationships. As the trees in the snow country
turn red and shed their leaves and transform into different
versions of themselves, so does the relationship between the two.
They both do the same, creating a sense of romance that grows
increasingly remote as they grow apart. They try to love, yet the
nearer they are, the farther apart they are. Winter in the snow
country is bitterly frigid, and this is reflected in Shimamura
and Komako’s relationship. During the winter, they fight
frequently, and Shimamura is seduced by Komako’s competitor,
Yoko, a woman at the inn in the snow country where he stays.

Germane to the discussion of symbolism as it wove together the

structure of the story, symbolisms are mobilized in grand scale;
apart from the love affair, attributes and its associations to
the novel’s seemingly plotless structure, it was also related to
feministic aspect as well.

This study will further elaborate how female characters in the

story being portrayed as victims of love and materialism. The
study examines female characters within the context of
patriarchy. In the novel, Shimamura becomes the symbol of
patriarchy. And the three women, Komako, Yoko and Shimamura’s
wife, are under this male dominating system.

The novel snow country caused stir in Japanese literature as it

dubbed as Japan’s first Nobel prize in Literature winner, due to
its great expression of Japanese mind. The author, Kawabata wrote
about the inner mind and traditional Japan. It may be known that
Japan has a patriarchal society, this conservative culture of
Japan is evident on Kawabata’s Snow Country. There are various
ripples that highly influenced this culture including the
practice of Shinto, Confucianism and Buddhism as the country’s
faiths, including as well the values and attitudes of Japanese
people which can be traced on the novel.

The three female characters represent three different types of

women. Shimamura's wife is a metaphor for women who have no
voices or actions to speak out against patriarchy. Yoko,
represents a woman with a voice but no actions to challenge
patriarchy. Meanwhile, Komako represents women who tried to
oppose patriarchy through her words or acts yet she was still
became the victim of love and materialism.
Shimamura's lonesome vacation to Snow Country is common in Japan.
Because Japanese culture is patriarchal, this is something that
both the wife and society can tolerate. They have passion under
control. It means they have the freedom to indulge their desires.
They receive more attention and have greater independence,
including the ability to express themselves. Shimamura is free to
travel wherever he wants and do anything he wants in this
situation. including receiving unlimited sexual fulfillment from
other ladies. He can relax at the hot springs in the area. About
eighteen Geisha are available in Snow Country to service
unaccompanied gentlemen. His presence within his household is not
required. He is free to choose whatever he wants as long as he
can economically support his family. His family has no right to
object.

Shimamura's wife is a nameless character that represents everyday

life. Japanese housewife had little guts to stand up to her
husband's abuse. She has been abandoned for a long time, and her
misery is compounded when she learns that her husband is having
fun with some geisha. Her defiance may end up putting her and her
children in danger. Traditional Japanese wives are symbolized by
their submissiveness to their husbands." These women, who have no
voices or activities, are abandoned, disregarded, and undervalued
because they are deemed inconsequential.

Yoko, the second female character, has a voice and can express
herself, wishes and hopes However, she fails to demonstrate her
conviction that every woman has the same ability to manage her
life as a male. When Shimamura expresses concern about her
leaving to Tokyo alone, Yoko responds confidently, as shown on
page 136,

"A woman by herself can easily get by."

She dares to express her own view that a woman can protect
herself in Tokyo without the aid of a male, yet she refuses to
go. She is not afraid to speak up, dares to take action. She is
beaten by fire at the end of the story, demonstrating that a
voice without action is nothing. Yoko is connected to the
existence of man, just like Shimamura's wife.

Komako, the third female character, still exists and is

Shimamura's love interest. This man still requires her. She can
position herself at a point where the man requires her. To put it
another way, she has control over Shimamura. This is due to the
fact that she not only speaks but also acts. She fully
comprehends that in order to become a topic, she must express her
own thoughts, desires, and hopes while also underlining her aim.
On page 20, Komako expresses her views on the Geisha's role in
society, as well as independency and the opportunity to live life
freely.

"No one forces a geisha to do what she doesn’t want to. It is

entirely up to the geisha herself."

She adds "It was up to the geisha whether she would stay the
night or not”. (Page 26)

These words demonstrate her intense desire to be respected and

not to be considered as the object of man's forbidden sexual
pleasure. Another example, Komako takes the risk of expressing
her desire for more than just friendship (see page 21-2). This is
an example of how a lady might begin an intimate relationship.

But, no matter how strong Komako’s conviction against

materialistic point of view of men towards women she failed to
protect herself. As the story unfolds, Komako helplessly became
weak, perhaps women are tagged as weaklings in the novel. Komako
is aware of her precarious situation due to the reason that she
is a Geisha, dirty notions glued in her personality. Komako also
addressed Kikuyu, a fellow geisha, the same way “Kikuyu was a
weak. A weakling”. Kikuyu is another female character, after
being used was left out nothing but misery and pain, while men
are the stronger and dominant. The female characters in the novel
displayed crying, which is a sign of weakness. This idea was
manifested in one of the lines in the story.

“She started to smile through the thick, white geisha’s powder.

Instead, she melted into tears, and the two them, walked off
silently towards his room.”

When the story shows why Komako was sobbing, it also demonstrates
how women’s powerlessness was perceived as a sign of weakness:

“In spite of what had passed between them, he had not written to
her, or come to see her, or sent her the dance instructions he
had promised. She was no doubt left to think that he had laughed
at her and forgotten her.”

In a patriarchal system, male dominancy and authority was

supported by the culture. This assertion is true in several
scenarios, men’s dominance over women has been emphasized in the
story. Shimamura asked Komako to call a geisha for him, Komako
refused to obey, he ordered “you call someone for me.” The
disagreement ensued:

“Call any geisha you like.”

“But isn’t that exactly what I’m asking you to do? I’ve never
been here before, and I’ve no idea which geisha are the best-
looking?” “What do you consider good-looking?” “Someone young.
You’re less apt to make mistakes when they’re young. And someone
who doesn’t talk too much. Clean, and not too quick.
The above dialogue from the novel does not only emphasize men’s
authority, but also highlight several restrictions on women and
applied the argument earlier, that women our viewed as sexual
objects to satisfy men’s pent-up desire. Since Shimamura
mentioned several gender identities that are appropriate for
women when being asked on what considers good-looking, he replied
someone that is young and do not talk too much, therefore we can
see his notions of each gender by way of their character and
worth, and tend to exercise the authority by taking advantage of
woman’s innocence and vulnerability – young, and restricts of
speaking for themselves – who doesn’t talk too much.
“His arm was around her neck so tight that her hair was rumpled
against his cheek. He thrust a hand inside the neck of her
kimono. He added coaxing words, but she did not answer. She
folded her arms like a bar over the breast he was asking for.
“What’s the matter with you.” She bit savagely at her arm, as
though angered by its refusal to serve her. “Damn you, damn you.
Lazy, useless. What’s the matter with you?”
The lines show the aggressiveness of Shimamura, he persists in
pursuing Komako’s breast, and along with the movement of his
hand, he backed it up with insinuating words so that the woman
will not resist, however Komako obstinate, thus resulting
Shimamura to curse her. The role of woman as sex object was
apparently manifested when Shimamura called the woman “useless”
after her refusal to serve her. But as the story unfolds, Komako
finally submitted herself to Shimamura, the argument is axiomatic
that although Komako tried to oppose patriarchy symbolize by the
character of Shimamura, she was still failed to protect herself.
“She no longer resisted, however. Giving her herself up to his
hands, she began writing something with the tip of her finger.”
Komako became passive, it was reinforced by Shimamura and perhaps
Komako’s submission is by her belief that Shimamura will somehow
reciprocate her passionate and unconditional love, but because of
Shimamura’s feign indifference towards women and his patriarchal
mentality, Komako is just exhausting herself for nothing and
wasting her youth and love.

The above arguments in the feminism lens can be also applied to

explain the structure of Komako’s personality which consist of
id, ego and superego, the three psychic zones according to Freud.
Since the beginning, Komako had liked Shimamura. However, as a
Geisha she should not cross the line of the client-geisha
relationship, as her solely job is to entertain the guest. In the
history of Geisha which is culturally innate to Japan, geishas
are professional and trained women to entertain guests by means
of performing Japanese music and dance. Historically, Geishas are
not prostitute, the negative connotations to them are influenced
by their status. According to Arthur Golden, the image of geisha
as prostitutes was popularized by the American soldiers after
World War II. In the geisha society, there are rules that geisha
should never sleep with their clients and most important is that
they cannot have sexual relationship with their clients.
However, Komako was deeply in loved with Shimamura and it
extended over the years. Her desire to declare her love for
Shimamura is Id Komako. The desire of the Id will force the ego
to actualize this drive by her submission to Shimamura. But
before the ego makes Id’s wish, the superego is moved by the
ego’s decision to act in ways that go against the social
standard. By rejecting Shimamura’s persuasion, the superego
marginally influences the ego.
“She writhed and twisted, and sank to the floor in the corner of
the room. “It won’t do. It won’t do. I’m going home. Going
home.”
“But then she said. “I won’t have any regrets. I’ll never have
any regrets. But I’m not that sort of woman. It can’t be last.”
If the ego executes the Id command, Komako will become worse be
she will not behave in accordance with norm and regulation of the
geisha society.
The driving force behind Komako’s feelings of love and devotion
to Shimamura is her Id. Being loved and capable of love is a
human necessity. If those conditions are met, the idea of soul-
satisfaction will be realized. The ego’s response to the wishes
of Id, is to tolerate Shimamura’s actions without having to be
furious about what he has done. This is related to Komako’s
passivity in a patriarchal system as represented by the character
of Shimamura. In feminism point of view, her complete submission
is an indication that she has voice and actions yet she failed to
protect herself by tolerating Shimamura’s action towards her.
As the story unfolds, it seems that Komako is more dominated by
her Id. However, it seems that Komako’s ego finally directed and
command the Id based on the dialogue form the novel:
“you said I was a good woman, didn’t you? You’re going away. Wy
did you have to say that to me?”
“I cried about it. I cried again after I got home. I’m afraid to
leave you. But please go away. I won’t forget that you made me
cry.”
The above quotation seems that Komako’s ego finally realized that
it cannot expressed the impulse of Id in reality. Because first
and foremost, Shimamura was a married man with children. He has
his own family in Tokyo. It was also dictates by the norm and
standards of the society she belongs to. And it is true based on
her words to Shimamura before leaving him.
If you leave, I’ll lead an honest life”
 Hobby – something that you do purely for pleasure, the stakes
are zero, the stakes are nothing
Job
Career
vocation

Ituloy mo leo sa naka highlight na kulay green

The idea of enhancement must be understood as a preface to our discussion. It is axiomatic that no
single approach can exhaust the manifold interpretive possibilities of a worthwhile literary work: each
approach has its own peculiar limitations. For example, the limitations of the historical-biographical
approach lie in its tendency to overlook the structural intricacies of the work. The formalist approaclu
on the other hand, often neglects historical and sociological contexts that may provide important
insights into the meaning of the work. In turn, the The Psychological Approach: Freud " 153 crucial
limitation of the psychological approach is its aesthetic inadequacy: psychological interpretation can
afford many profound clues toward solving a work's thematic and symbolic mysteries, but it can
seldom account for the beautiful syrnmetry of a well-wrought poem or of a fictional masterpiece.
Though the psychological approach is an excellent tool for reading beneath the lines, the interpretive
craftsman must often use other tools such as the formalist approach for a proper rendering of the
lines themselves.
As we pointed out earlier in this chapter, the id knows no moral or social restraints, being driven
solely by the pleasure principle

She started to smile through the

thick, white geisha’s powder. Instead she melted
into tears, and the two of them walked off silently
toward his room.

Shimamura, Shimamura's sister, Shimamura's mother, Shimamura's

sister, Shimamura's sister, Shim

Yoko Ono and her wife, Komako, are regarded as symbols. To

further explain these symbols,

Shimamura becomes a symbol of patriarchy when the writer analyzes

the characters' statements and behavior. The three female
characters represent three types of women. Shimamura's wife
represents women who have no words or actions to speak out
against patriarchy. Yoko Ono represents a woman with a voice but
no actions to challenge patriarchy. Meanwhile, Komako represents
women who oppose patriarchy through their words or acts.

Shimamura's solo vacation to Snow Country is common in Japan. The

Because Japanese culture is patriarchal, this is something that

both the wife and society can tolerate.
The nearer they

are the farther apart they are.

Nature themes and imagery evoking a specific season are the
traditional focus of haiku poetry
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry made of short, unrhymed lines
that evoked natural imagery. Haiku can come in a variety of
different formats of short verses, though the most common is a
three lines poem with a 5-7-5 syllable patterns.
The ambiguity of his highly imagistic writing is perhaps what led
scholars to liken Kawabata to Bashō and other legendary haiku
masters, for haiku by its very nature depends on the elision of
disparate images which suggest an overarching meaning. Haiku is
too momentary to deal with temporal leaps, but Kawabata’s novel
opens up those possibilities. The episodic nature of Snow Country
– both in how it came gradually into public life and in the prose
itself – functions like an expanded haiku, as it goes into
extreme detail where imagery is concerned but extends little
effort to come to a grandiose conclusion about them. This marks
an important distinction between Kawabata’s Japanese mode of
thought and the English mode of thought about narrative: for
Kawabata, the images were the most important part, and that is
where the spirit of his writing comes to life. Haiku, for all
their brevity, “have unusual wakefulness and clarity” (Hass xvi)
because of the way they arrive at their meaning. They do not
force a conclusion, but rather suggest one gentl
Kawabata’s narrative is episodic and sparse and non-linear,
lacking the overly defined connective tissue between scenes that
Western fiction is known for. In many instances, the imagery in
Kawabata’s writing feels more like expanded poetry than
novelistic fiction. Take, for example, the opening scene of Snow
Country. Pages are devoted to the exact description of an image,
which is Shimamura watching Yoko’s portrait semi-reflected on the
window of a train and observing how it begins to fuse with the
passing mountain landscape on the other side of the glass. This
trance-like stillness of the narrative might, by some Western
criteria, seem superfluous or digressing from the narrative, but
the true effect in Kawabata’s novel is to
Yōko gave Shimamura a single quick and penetrating glance […]; he
could not forget that glance, which continued to burn before his
eyes. It seemed to him like a cold fire, like a distant light,
perhaps because he had recalled the impression he had when, the
evening prior, while he was looking at Yōko’s face reflected in
the train window, the light from the mountains passed behind her
face and was superimposed on her pupils, illuminating them, and
he was captivated by the ineffable beauty of that image. Along
with that memory, another image immediately came to mind, that of
Komako’s red cheeks in the mirror, against a snowy landscape”

Yoko darted one quick, piercing glance at

Shimamura and went silently out over the earthen
floor.

Even when he had left the house, Shimamura

was haunted by that glance, burning just in front
of his forehead. It was cold as a very distant light,
for the inexpressible beauty of it had made his
heart rise when, the night before, that light off in
the mountains had passed across the girl’s face in
the train window and lighted her eye for a mo-
ment. The impression came back to Shimamura,
and with it the memory of the mirror filled with
snow, and Komako’s red cheeks floating in the
middle of it.
It was then that a light shone in the face. The
reflection in the mirror was not strong enough to
blot out the light outside, nor was the light strong
enough to dim the reflection. The light moved
across the face, though not to light it up. It was a
distant, cold light. As it sent its small ray through
the pupil of the girl’s eye, as the eye and the light
were superimposed one on the other, the eye be-
came a weirdly beautiful bit of phosphorescence on
the sea of evening mountains.

He further associates the fire scene with the story’s beginning

by setting his memory of the wild fire flared through Yoko’s eye
several months ago against the time that he has spent with
Komako, that is, the novel’s temporal entirety.
a definite, climactic ending that corresponds well with the
beginning and gives a final coherent settlement to the gradually
unfolded story. It is irrelevant, then, to debate whether the
story remains unfinished or to surmise a sequence he might have
written after the given closure.
, Kawabata’s creative mind actually demanded a definite,
climactic ending that corresponds well with the beginning and
gives a final coherent settlement to the gradually unfolded
story.
Conclusion
Reading the novel will quite irritate you because of the subtlety
of the story itself. It seems like a puzzle somehow. It can be a
little difficult to follow if you don’t read carefully, but this
cannot overpower the beauty of the story because of the rich
imagery, which is very appealing, the abstraction and symbolism
that considerably aid readers’ understanding of the story, and
the emotions it evokes. It's meant to make you wonder about
what's left unsaid, about what the characters truly mean behind
their words. This pulls you deeper into the story