Studying the girl's physical appearance, and smelling her scent, Eguchi was experiencing mixed emotions. he smell reminded him of babies, but he realized that a young woman approaching twenty could not smell like milk. He might have actually returned to his own age of the innocence, "a passing specter" (idem, 20).

he author creates a very strong contrast between everything that old and young symbolize. Old age is represented only trough ugliness, decay, coldness, dark, bad smells. On the other hand, youth, the thing that Eguchi and all the rest of those visiting the house were hoping to find, is full of nursery smells, warm feelings, nice, melodious sounds. he story further unravels another possible explanation for the smell of milk Eguchi first sensed lying beside the girl. He was almost senile, but he still had something left from his virility that made him slightly different than Kiga, his friend who…...

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The smells, the view, the sound of the young sleeping beauty overwhelmed Eguchi with memories. He remembered the geisha he used to visit who got angry because he smelled like his younger son, he held in his arms just before coming to her. That represents fatherhood, treason, jealousy, all the features of the passionate young age. Further, Eguchi remembers the blood he sucked out of the breasts of his first love. "It was a triviality, but the girl whose breast had been wet with blood had taught him that a man's lips could draw blood from almost any part of a woman's body" (idem, 25).

Although Kawabata will never clearly indicate what is was that Eguchi longed for, making him come back to the House of the Sleeping Beauties over and over again, the reader can guess that everything must be related to the secret of life. The young men who are able to make love over and over again, being at the peak of their sexual potential, are also feeling empowered by that virility. The act of making love may be the only way to forget about death and decay for a few moments that the orgasm lasts. Mankind's only chance to stay away from death comes from the ability to make love. Old Eguchi may be longing for the lost weapon when he is experiencing the sleep beside another sleeping young beauty.

Kawabata, Tasunari. House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories: And Other Stories. Kodansha International, 2004

Country" by Yasunari Kawabata
"The Dead" by James Joyce and "Snow Country" by Yasunari Kawabata are literary works that uses the technique of imagery in depicting the occurrence of death. "The Dead" by Joyce is a short story that depicts life in Ireland and the unfulfilled love between Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. "Snow Country," meanwhile, illustrates the gloomy life of Shimamura and Komako, as they lead dissatisfying and unfortunate lives, respectively. Death is a common theme between the two works, and through the characters of each story, readers are able to identify the meaning of death for Joyce and Kawabata. In "The Dead," snow serves as a symbol and image of dead, primarily because of the attached meaning given to snow -- it represents stillness and coldness, characteristics that are apparently found in death. Furthermore, through the characters of Misses Kate and Julia, death becomes even more evident. It is…...

Country by Yasunari is a story that depicts a variety of diverse and rich imagery that is presented through symbolization of the natural setting. From the snow to the rocks and the cedar and the equally important presence of the human life the story takes on an allegorical form that touches the emotional psyche of the reader. Thus, this paper will explore the symbolic representation that has been lost or forgotten through translations of the story and present it as a segment of the plot. In short the paper will explore how symbolic imagery adds to the plot of the story.
Yasunari Kawabata novels were set in environments depicting loneliness, emptiness, symbolizing unsatisfied yearning, and transient or unattainable love, with a backdrop of wild and beautiful nature. His novels were written in a free associative and unconventional style, usually over long periods of time. The bulk of 'Snow Country' was…...

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References

http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/96-2/issue5/kawabata.html

Uedo, Makoto. Modern Japanese Writers. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1976.

Kimball, Arthur G. Crisis and Identity in Contemporary Japanese Novels. Boston:

Tuttle, 1973.

The earth lay white under the night sky."(Kawabata, 1) This opening phrase of the novel is very revealing: the hero comes from the intimacy of darkness (the tunnel) into the open blankness of the Snow Country. The setting thus translates the sense of innocence but also that of emptiness and loneliness.
Camus' Stranger also hints at solitude and alienation even from the title. Mersault is already a famous literary character, the modern alien in society. The main difference between him and Shimamura is the fact that the latter has a Romantic bent towards fantasy and a narcissism that keeps him locked in his own world. The common trait that they share is their permanent sense of anxiety. Mersault, unlike Shimamura, is literally afraid of the people that surround him. Incapable of empathy, Mersault feels like a complete stranger not only because he cannot connect with the others but because he…...

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Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York, Vintage, 1954.

Kawabata, Yasunari. Snow Country and Thousand Cranes. New York: Knopf, 1958

All is forgiven. Eventually, both of them disappear into one of the trees that the old man's ancestors have looked after, for hundreds of years.
Is the story emotionally positive or negative in tone? On one hand, the old man was a failure in life, and drove a woman to suicide. Yet in death, everything seems to be forgiven, and he returns to her and the spiritual resting place of his ancestors. Both her and his saving grace was that he remembered her. Misako says that so long as he lives on and remembers her, she is still alive. The author resists judging his characters, either the formerly suicidal girl or the deaf old man who betrayed her when he was young. It suggests that there is absolute forgiveness after death for everyone, and the dead live in a state of unity with the natural world. So long as a…...

person's perception changes their reality, by comparing the two stories "In a grove" from ashomon by yunosuke Akutagawa and "A thousand cranes" by Yasunari Kawabata
Akutagawa yunosuke, born in the year 1892, was a short story writer and a poet and an essayist, who was also one of the first few Japanese writers whose works happened to be translated into English. He was a perfectionist, and an extremely stylish one at that, and he often wrote on macabre themes. The author was born in Tokyo, which is famous for its rich and varied cultural heritage, and this heritage is reflected to a great extent in all his writings. Akutagawa yunosuke style of writing has been described as being highly expressive and explicit, and this is usually in evidence when he describes sensations, like for example, he describes the touch of a butterfly's wings and said that for many years afterwards,…...

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References

Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Retrieved From

  Accessed on 9 March, 2005http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~xyang/j341_01f/akuta20.htm 

Akutagawa Ryunosuke: (1892-1927). Retrieved From

Accessed on 9 March, 2005http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/akuta.htm

The umbrella is a symbol of protection. It begins in the boy's hands and ends in the girl's. At first he is reluctant to share it with her, though he wants to -- his shyness does not allow him to be so bold. She simply wants to share in the holding of the umbrella with him -- because it is his and he is holding it. By the end of the story, she is holding the umbrella, and she cannot bring herself to return it. Her taking it suggests to the boy that now they are united -- she can share in the protection the umbrella affords against the weather. In this sense, the umbrella becomes a symbol of marriage -- which is a kind of institution that offers protection to two people against the inclemency of time and space. Her nature causes her to want to be close to…...

All year-round, the smells of a coffin and coffin nails hover over her. Great-Grandmother does not brush her teeth. Great-Grandmother does not believe in airplanes. Great-Grandmother does not watch television
Great-Grandmother simply stands in front of the window of her Garret, or sits in the sun, a sun that does not penetrate her but simply casts a shadow behind her. She is very pale and does her hair in an archaic fashion, and has a face that the narrator describes as a set of wrinkles with archeological significance.

Each family treats the situation with different tactics but all show an inherent disdain for the very old, to the point of seeing and treating them as if they are inhuman, and with an irreverent lack of respect that is contrary to the culture from which they came. The only piece that offers a consoling look at the very old, throughout is Thoughts…...

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Bi Feiyu, John Balcom, trans. The Ancestor in Goldblatt, Howard ed. Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused. New York: Grove Press. 1996.

Su Tong, Howard Golblatt, trans. The Brothers Shu, in Goldblatt, Howard ed. Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused. New York: Grove Press. 1996.

Kawabata Yasunari, George Seito' trans. The Moon on the Water in Sonu Hwi, Marshall, Pihl, trans. Thoughts of Home, in Peter Lee Modern Korean Literature, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1990, pgs 203-215.