Fiction 5 :Yasunari Kawabata’s “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket”
Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose sparse, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket
Walking along the wall of a university, the narrator hears an insect’s voice from behind the fence of a school playground. The fence gives way to an embankment, at the base of which the narrator sees a cluster of bobbing, multicolored lanterns.
The narrator now imagines that one of the neighborhood children, having heard an insect sing on the slope one night, returns the next night to search for the insect. The next night, another child joins the first one, and so on. When the narrator comes on the insect hunting party, he counts twenty children among its members.
The narrator imagines a scenario in which one child, unable to afford a store-bought red lantern, creates his own from a small carton. Others follow his example. The narrator pictures the children coloring and drawing on paper they then stretch over the various-shaped windows they have cut out of the cartons, each making a singular pattern. Eventually, the child who bought his lantern grows dissatisfied with it and discards it. The narrator supposes that each day the children—whom the narrator likens to artists—create new lanterns. Brought back to the present, the narrator notices on the lanterns the names of the children who made them, cut in letters of the syllabary.
A boy who has been peering into a bush away from the other children suddenly asks if anyone wants a grasshopper. A number of children gather around; he calls again, and more children flock to him.
Theme (narrative)
In contemporary literary studies, a theme is the central topic a text treats. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject".
The most common contemporary understanding of theme is an idea or point that is central to a story, which can often be summed in a single word (e.g. love, death, betrayal). Typical examples of themes of this type are conflict between the individual and society; coming of age; humans in conflict with technology; nostalgia; and the dangers of unchecked ambition.[examples needed] A theme may be exemplified by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of a character in a novel. An example of this would be the theme loneliness in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, wherein many of the characters seem to be lonely. It may differ from the thesis—the text's or author's implied worldview.[example needed]
A story may have several themes. Themes often explore historically common or cross-culturally recognizable ideas, such as ethical questions, and are usually implied rather than stated explicitly. An example of this would be whether one should live a seemingly better life, at the price of giving up parts of one's humanity, which is a theme in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the components of fiction.
Mimesis
Mimesis is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the presentation of the self.
In ancient Greece, mimesis was an idea that governed the creation of works of art, in particular, with correspondence to the physical world understood as a model for beauty, truth, and the good. Plato contrasted mimesis, or imitation, with diegesis, or narrative. After Plato, the meaning of mimesis eventually shifted toward a specifically literary function in ancient Greek society, and its use has changed and been reinterpreted many times since then.
The Reader
The Reader is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997. The story is a parable, dealing with the difficulties post-war German generations have had comprehending the Holocaust; Ruth Franklin writes that it was aimed specifically at the generation Berthold Brecht called the Nachgeborenen, those who came after. Like other novels in the genre of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the struggle to come to terms with the past, The Reader explores how the post-war generations should approach the generation that took part in, or witnessed, the atrocities. These are the questions at the heart of Holocaust literature in the late 20th and early 21st century, as the victims and witnesses die and living memory fades.
resurrection
the action or fact of resurrecting or being resurrected
Equinox
An equinox occurs twice a year, around 20 March and 22 September. The word itself has several related definitions. The oldest meaning is the day when daytime and night are of approximately equal duration.
retrospect
a survey or review of a past course of events or period of time
exemplary
serving as a desirable model; representing the best of its kind
asperity
harshness of tone or manner
assets - liabilities = equity
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