Morrison

Study Guide: Kawabata Yasunaris The Izu Dancer (1927)

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*Kawabata Yasunari (1899-1972): Son of a highly-cultivated physician,
Kawabata was born in 1899 in Osaka. After the early death of his parents he was raised
in the country by his maternal grandfather and attended the Japanese public school.
From 1920 to 1924, Kawabata studied at the Tokyo Imperial University, where he
received his degree. He was one of the founders of the publication Bungei Jidai, the
medium of a new movement in modern Japanese literature. Kawabata made his debut as
a writer with the short story, Izu dancer, published in 1927. After several
distinguished works, the novel Snow Country in 1937 secured Kawabatas position as
one of the leading authors in Japan. In 1949, the publication of the serials Thousand
Cranes and The Sound of the Mountain was commenced. He became a member of the
Art Academy of Japan in 1953 and four years later he was appointed chairman of the
P.E.N. Club of Japan. At several international congresses Kawabata was the Japanese
delegate for this club. The Lake (1955), The Sleeping Beauty (1960) and The Old
Capital (1962) belong to his later works, and of these novels, The Old Capital is the one
that made the deepest impression in the authors native country and abroad. In 1959,
Kawabata received the Goethe-medal in Frankfurt. (source: www.nobelprize.org)

Answer all of the following questions.

1. Describe the narrator (his social position, personality, motivations, etc.). Why does he
consider himself a misanthrope? How does his experience on the Izu peninsula cure
him of his misanthropy?

2. Describe the setting. Make a list of all the place names that appear.

3. What is the certain hope that the narrator harbors in the opening scene. What does
he seem to be plotting?

4. Describe the dancing girl Kaoru. How does she seem to hover between the two
realms of childhood innocence and young womanhood?


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Translated by Edward Seidensticker; originally published in The Atlantic Monthly,
January 1955.
5. Make a list of the minor characters in the work. How are they related? How do the
older women behave toward Kaoru? Toward the narrator?

6. Ishikawa was very involved with the New Perceptionist group (Shinkankaku-ha)
when he wrote this work.
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What modernist techniques can you find in the work?

7. Why does the narrator sit rigid in his room on the night of the party? What does he
fear might happen to the dancing girl while entertaining male guests?

8. Discuss the outdoor bath scene in which the narrator sees the dancing girl naked.
Why does he feel that suddenly a draught of fresh water seemed to wash over my
heart? Why does he feel as though a layer of dust had been cleared from [his] head?

9. Does the plot of The Izu Dancer correspond to the Freytag Pyramid? Explain.

10. It has been forty-nine days since the prematurely born baby died. What is the
significance of forty-nine days in Buddhist funerals?

11. Discuss the class distinctions that appear in the work. How are the entertainers
viewed by the local residents/inn managers/etc.? How does the narrators attitude
toward to the entertainers differ from theirs?

12. What is the second certain hope that the narrator harbors (as he reads to Kaoru
from her storytellers collection)?

13. Describe the structural/stylistic similarities between this work and Matsuo Bashs
Oku no hosomichi (late 17
th
c.), and diary literature (nikki bungaku) in general.

14. What images of death appear in the work? Describe their significance.

15. Describe the purification/ablution scene at the spring/well. How is this similar to the
Shint ritual of purification/ablution (misogi )?

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Term coined by journalist/critic Chiba Kameo (1878-1935) to refer to the group of
writers centered around Bungei Jidai journal (1924-7), who were influenced by the
avant-garde trends in European literature of the 1920s. Chiba sees this period as the
birth of literary modernism.

16. Discuss the last scene. Why is the narrator crying again? Why does he eat the boys
lunch as though it were mine? Why does his head feel clear and empty? What does
he mean by a beautiful emptiness? Is this scene related to the ideas of banbutsu
ichinyo (unity of all beings/things) in Zen Buddhism?

The boy opened his lunch and I ate as though it were mine. Afterwards I
covered myself with part of his cape. I floated in a beautiful emptiness, and it
seemed natural that I should take advantage of his kindness. Everything sank into
an enfolding harmony.
The lights went out, the smell of the sea and of the fish in the hold grew
stronger. In the darkness, warmed by the boy beside me, I gave myself up to my
tears. It was as though my head had turned to clear water; it was falling pleasantly
away drop by drop; soon nothing wood remain.

17. Do you think the narrator will ever see the entertainers again?