Kokoro

Author: Natsume Sōseki

I like how Soseki first present Sensei’s outlook on life, then the narrators anxiousness and the lonely draw to the enigmatic Sensei, and, finally, the story behind this aloof and tortured presentation.

This was quite a depressing rate that drove me into the melancholy state of mind, a mood that I seldom find myself in. Sensei’s distrust, the humanity reminds me somewhat of Edmond Dantès, yet the effect produced is highly juxtaposed — one reverential and pious, the other depressed and unsettled. Sensei is the type Dantès would view with disdain; while Sensei’s distrust in humanity drives him to despair and his own actions spark intense cognitive dissonance, Dantès sees it upon himself to become the hand of justice. Both reveal the nature of men. One grandiose, the other through daily life.

The story contrast with Dostoevsky’s White Nights. Resignation and gratefulness versus combat and possession. Humility versus greed. Both lonely and melancholy, yet with completely different approaches to love. Yes, they have different circumstances, but are similar. Their opposite actions demonstrate the dual nature of men and how different experiences can completely alter the course of a person’s psyche guilt and betrayal versus isolation and reverie.

notes

Sensei and I

A man capable of love, or I should say rather a man who was by nature, incapable of not loving; but a man who could not wholeheartedly accept the love of another— such a one was Sensei (26)

You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves. (30)

Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or, at least, ordinary. But tempt them, they may suddenly change. (61)

• The narrator has an intuitive affection for sensei. Loneliness. Attachment, like a puppy.
• Sensei warns him not to look up to him, so he doesn’t feel the urge to humiliate him once the illusion is shattered

My Parents and I

Father, dying from kidney disease, like sensei’s mother-in-law Means a lot to his father that he had been alive when his son graduated. Content to guilt. Difference in perspective. Disdain for the older generation.

The contrast between the most so sharp that I could not think of one without thinking of the other. (99)

• Parents live in a small world, cannot think of the scope beyond the countryside
• Family doesn’t get why he looks up to sensei who lives the life of idleness
  • Sensei himself also thinks of himself lowly and hates humans
    • Lonely and melancholy
• There’s a contrast between the protagonist waiting for his father’s death while also being alarmed by senses. Slow versus instantaneous. He goes to Tokyo immediately.

Sensei and His Testament

And like most cowards I suffered because I could not decide. (125)

No matter how full one’s head might be with greatness, one was useless, I found out, unless one was a worthy man first. (180)

• Sensei lunges at K’s weakness, despite his vulnerability and pain. “My answer was cruel. The wolf jumped at the lamb’s throat.” (216)

When might say that his past was his life, and to deny it would have meant that his life was far had been without a purpose. (218)

• K value a concentration of mind. Independent, resolute and spiritual beliefs, and studies. Lonely. Ideas at war with reality. He, too, was in love with Ojosan.

• Sensei put K down by targeting his weak points. He asked Okusan if he can marry Ojosan behind his back.

• K has been wanting to die, but does so two days after hearing of the engagement. He had already been asking since if he had been sleeping well recently since before he asked for Ojosan’s hand.

I thought of the new stone, of my new wife, and of the newly buried white bones be beneath us, and I felt that fate had made sport of us all. (326)

• Feels sorry for his wife
• His uncle cheated him of his money
• Not having children was equivalent to divine punishment for him