This essay analyzes Higuchi Ichiyo's novella Takekurabe (Growing Up), focusing on how the story's child characters — Midori, Nobu, Shota, and Chokichi — are each shaped by the rigid social and economic structures of Meiji-era Japan. The paper examines Ichiyo's narrative and descriptive choices in introducing each character, arguing that these introductions are themselves determined by class, gender, and family profession. Special attention is given to how Midori's appearance-centered introduction functions as implicit feminist critique, and how Ichiyo's use of representative character types exposes the myth of social mobility in a Japan undergoing political but not social transformation.
The paper demonstrates counter-reading, a technique in literary analysis where the writer acknowledges an apparently problematic surface reading of the text and then argues for a deeper, more defensible interpretation. By addressing the potential charge of sexism in Ichiyo's portrayal of Midori directly and then dismantling it through contextual analysis, the writer shows how close textual attention can resolve apparent contradictions in a literary work.
The essay opens with a thesis connecting Meiji-era historical change to social stasis, then moves character by character through Ichiyo's introductions — Nobu, Chokichi, Shota, and finally Midori. The Midori section is the analytical centerpiece, occupying the most space and deploying the most detailed argument. The essay then zooms out to consider Ichiyo's method holistically before closing with a brief conclusion that restates the central claim about the illusion of childhood freedom.
Higuchi Ichiyo's novella Takekurabe, alternately translated as Growing Up or Child's Play, follows the lives of three children growing up near the "licensed quarter" of Yoshiwara — the area of Tokyo where prostitution was legalized and regulated (Ichiyo 70). The story charts the gradual transition from childhood into adulthood during a period of rapid change in Japanese history and culture. The Meiji period represented the first emergence of a truly unified Japan out of the feudal states of the past, and the young lives of Midori, Nobu, Shota, and Chokichi feature a vitality and excitement that reflects the hope and promise of change and growth.
However, as they get older, the characters gradually realize that ossified social structures of Japanese classes and professions remain even as the country changes on a larger scale, such that they end up following in the footsteps of their families rather than charting their own paths. Furthermore, it becomes clear in retrospect that even the ostensible freedom of their childhoods was entirely circumscribed by their family circumstances. By examining the children's fates in the context of Japan's social upheavals, one can see how Ichiyo's story expresses the hopes and fears of a generation of Japanese people observing the change around them even as they become victims of the inequality and immobility characteristic of life in Meiji-era Japan.
In the first three sections of Growing Up, Ichiyo introduces the central characters of Shota, Nobu, and Midori one by one, and these introductions provide the reader with a wealth of information regarding the social and cultural structures of the time. Even though the introductions are ostensibly focused on the childhood activities of these characters, examining them closely reveals how their childhood lives and concerns are already entirely determined by the social structures and familial professions that will eventually dictate their adult lives. Furthermore, even the way Ichiyo narrates these introductions differs slightly depending on the character in question, such that the specific language used contributes to the reader's understanding of these children's fates.
The first child to be introduced by name is Nobu, and immediately Ichiyo hints at his future fate, saying that "his thick black hair will one day be shaved, and his child's clothes changed for the black of the priest.... Perhaps it was by his own choice, perhaps he was only reconciled to what had to be" (Ichiyo 72). Ichiyo writes that "something about him, something of the priest, singled him out from the rest," which causes him to be the victim of bullying and teasing in his younger years (Ichiyo 72). Knowing that he is destined to become a priest and thus responsible for praying for the dead, other children would joke about his future and then throw a dead cat at him (Ichiyo 72). Already, then, one can see how the ostensibly innocent period of childhood is actually predetermined by the role of the family in society and the future that role dictates.
This is further demonstrated in the case of Nobu when he is recruited into Chokichi's gang. Even though Nobu is destined to be a priest and is portrayed as a stereotypically bookish scholar, his resentment at the inequality and injustice arising from his lower social and economic status encourages him to join the fight against the richer children (Ichiyo 72, 74–75). Although he is opposed to violence generally and is not particularly suited to it, he is convinced to join due to the solidarity that arises from suffering "the arrogance of the public schools" alongside the other poorer and less politically connected children (Ichiyo 74). The fact that Nobu is willing to join the fight is a testament to how the very same social structures that will determine his adult fate already govern his activities as a child.
Interestingly, the character of Shota is not introduced directly, but rather is shown from the perspective of Chokichi, a poorer youth and leader of a street gang. The choice to introduce Shota in this way is especially important for understanding the influence of larger social structures on the characters' childhood lives, because it serves to demonstrate the social and economic inequality that exists in Tokyo and how that inequality affects childhood activities well before future occupations become an issue. Chokichi leads "the back-street gang," a group of children living on the "back street" — the poorer area of the neighborhood — which has a rivalry with the main street, where richer and more politically connected families reside (Ichiyo 72). Chokichi has some small privilege in that his father is fire chief, but he is violent and somewhat hot-tempered, and Ichiyo suggests that this may be a result of his resentment at the inequality he sees around him.
Ichiyo writes that Chokichi is interested in fighting Shota precisely because the latter "could give him blow for blow" without concern for offending the fire chief, and more generally because Shota and his gang represented the more prosperous main street. This social and economic division is so entrenched that "even when the two schools sang the same songs the Ikueisha [Chokichi's school] somehow sounded apologetic, like a poor relation" (Ichiyo 73). In contrast to Chokichi's violent tendencies and impoverished background, Shota is described as having money and being "an engaging lad no one could dislike" (Ichiyo 72). Chokichi is especially incensed that "two or three boys from the back street had even gone quietly over to [Shota's] side," because it represents how completely his life is dictated by the arbitrary divisions of class and economics rather than individual worth or desire (Ichiyo 73).
In her novella Growing Up, Higuchi Ichiyo uses her descriptive and narrative skills to demonstrate how even in an era of ostensible social and political upheaval, the larger structures and traditions that govern everyone's life remain in place. She does so in a particularly poignant way by focusing on children who go about their lives largely unaware of the extent to which the adult world completely controls and determines their futures. Although the children imagine that they inhabit a world of their own — with their own concerns and squabbles — in reality these concerns are entirely dependent on their social and economic class, something that by definition is a product of the adult world.
By using characters who represent the stereotypical experience of people from different classes and family backgrounds, Ichiyo is able to demonstrate in a tragic and moving fashion the way in which overarching inequalities and social structures determine a child's interests and activities well before that child begins to think for him or herself. In this way, Ichiyo exposes the hypocrisies and anxieties of a Japan in the midst of substantial upheaval — upheaval that would transform Japan's political character but leave its social character largely intact.
Ichiyo, Higuchi. "Growing Up." Ed. Donald Keene, Modern Japanese Literature. New York: Grove Press, 1956.
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