Yasunari Kawabata's novel Thousand Cranes

His inclination to consider the westbound tradition and faith of Christianity is hardly a rational decision, still instead is the result of his need to find some feature of hope in a life which has been drained of that remarkable commodity. If Tamura, for example, had been offered the Buddhistic tea sacrament as a smarminess for his suffering and complete demoralization, it is likely that he would have seen the ceremony, at best, as a bandage for an open wound. The traditional, sedate, conventional nestle of Buddhism to life simply does non suffice in Tamura's case. possibly Christianity w ill not give him what he needs, alone at least it is a new representation which stands in contrast to the old way which is crashing down wholly approximately him as japan loses the contend and sees its country and culture in ruins. Perhaps Tamura's consideration of Christianity came as it did in character reference because he shows no inclination from the beginning of the novel to defend Japan or Japanese culture in he war. aft(prenominal) all, the first major event in the book is his defection of his unit, not the act of a earth who is driven to celebrate or practice the rituals of the religion of his nation and culture.

Of course, in the slew of Kawabata, that culture is not in ruins at all, but survives the war and allows human beings who depend on it to survive and love as well. To the characters

in Kawabata, Buddhism represents a connexion with the culture, with the spirit, with one another, and especially with the past and with the baseation that past lends to their fervent relationship.

One major difference in the two novels is found in the attitudes of the two protagonists to the events of their lives. Tamura from the beginning of his story is a man without roots, or without enough roots to give him a sense of belonging. He is a man adrift, a man uncomfortable about life and the future. He is profoundly disturbed end-to-end the novel, emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually.

Kikuji is certainly not the most unperturbed character in literary history, but the calm he does find, or at least the ability to endure with a measure of reasonableness in the midst of great passion, is in large part due to his practice of and dependence on the Buddhist way of life as manifested in that ceremony. Perhaps the greatest will to the power of Buddhism and the tea ceremony to affect an individual absolutely is the fact that Kikuji is hardly a dedicated practitioner of the ceremony as the book opens, and yet it has a markedly positive effect on him in keeping him relatively fairish and calm in the turbulent life of the passions he leads. He receives the invitation from Chikako, but considers it another of many such "formal gestures in memory of his father," is late and "did not know whether or not he would go" (Kawabata 3-4). He actually goes not for the Buddhist imperturbability the ceremony offers, but because of the prospect of meeting a young woman, and admits to Mrs. Ota that "I know nothing at all about" the tea ceremony (Kawabata 17). Mrs. Ota points out the intergenerational connections which are an historic part of Buddhism and Japanese culture: "But you have it in your blood" (Kawabata 17), in reference to Kikuji's dead father.

Ooka, Shohei. Fires on the Plain. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle, 1996.

To apparent motion toward a religion and faith forei
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.