Marriage in Kojin By Komashaku Kimi

1. Marriage in KojinBy KomashakuKimi Presented by Emurii MacArthur and Jasmine Florencio

2. Principle Claims • Komashaku claims that Soseki has used Kojin as a means of exploring his own troubled marriage • Ichiro takes the role of Soseki, and is portrayed as feminine • Kojin ends with Soseki and Ichiro’s shared revelation that the patriarchal dynamics of the time force women into an oppressed role

3. A View Towards Home

4. “A View Turned Toward Home” • Komashaku established Soseki’s background and upbringing • Soseki is an intellectual member of the upper class, yet was raised among the lower class (“shitamachi”) • This allowed him to think about the public and private worlds of society and the home as equal, and think about social dynamics in the home (marriage) on the same terms as the larger social issues outside of the home

5. Marriage Seen From The Inside

6. “Marriage Seen From The Inside” • As a member of a nuclear family, Soseki was able to view marriage as primary to familial relations • Soseki was, like Ichiro, in the midst of a martial crisis with his own wife • Komashaku establishes “marriage” itself as the central theme of Kojin

7. Different Forms of Marriage

8. “Different Forms of Marriage” • Komashaku analyzes the first chapter and its establishment of the theme “marriage” and its varying treatments throughout the novel • Okada and Okane are presented as the prototypical happy couple who “do not ruminate on society’s customs” (60) as Ichiro does • Jiro is charged with investigating Osada’s suitor – he finds himself uncomfortable with the task and wonders whether his own marriage will be arranged this way

9. “Different Forms of Marriage” (cont.) • Komashaku asserts that Jiro’s apprehensions about matchmaking and the Okadas’ dismissal thereof is meant to be Soseki “[depicting] how marriage, no matter how simple or off-handedly arranged, is seen as a joyous event” (60) • Misawa and the geisha’s relationship is used as a device to show “the fateful and fearful consequences that a chance meeting between a man and a woman can incur” (60) before unraveling the more important narrative of Misawa’s young divorcee

10. “Different Forms of Marriage” (cont.) • Soseki uses this first chapter to engage the issue of marriage on a grand scale, showing how marriage may go smoothly if one does not over-think it (the Okadas), how “day after day, people involuntarily hurt each other or are hurt themselves” (61) by even the slightest actions in a marriage, and how marriage is “a relation so important as to be one that nearly determines one’s entire life” (61)

11. “Different Forms of Marriage” (cont.) • “With Misawa’s story as case in point of a brief encounter that leads to disaster, one cannot be sure how many relationships lead to someone being harmed” (61) • This is meant to show that Ichiro’s dilemma cannot be dismissed easily as his being a bad husband, or Onao’s being a bad wife, but must be addressed on its own terms as a relationship between a man and a woman

12. The Incommunicable Anguish of the Married Couple

13. “The Incommunicable Anguish of the Married Couple” • Ichiro, painstakingly depicted as an honest, forthright and justice-loving man, wants only to fully capture Onao’s heart: for her to love him • Unable to really know if she does (“to grasp her spirit”), he becomes suspicious that she is having an affair with Jiro (constructs a love triangle) • Forced to “[grapple] with the problem on his own” (61), Ichiro is filled with an incommunicable anguish

14. “The Incommunicable Anguish of the Married Couple” (cont.) • Jiro takes the role of the objective viewer who is able to account for Ichiro and Onao’s actions in terms of their incompatible character

15. Ichiro As The Polar Opposite of Masculinity

16. “Ichiro As The Polar Opposite of Masculinity” • Komashaku describe the traditional man of this period as: interested in a woman’s looks, uninterested in matters of the home, and primarily concerned with matters of the outside • Traditionally, the character who agonizes over grasping the heart of the other is the woman: in Kojin, that woman is Ichiro • The divorcee from Chapter 1 acts as a Ghost of Christmas Future, a harbinger of things to come if Ichiro ultimately fails to know his wife’s heart

17. “Ichiro As The Polar Opposite of Masculinity” (cont.) • Ichiro empathizes most strongly with the blind woman whom his father lies to • This empathy drives Ichiro to lose all trust in people when he learns that his father has lied to her; a stereotypically feminine emotion and response

18. “Ichiro As The Polar Opposite of Masculinity” (cont.) • Soseki uses this anecdote to establish “how people treat someone like Ichiro – like a tenacious woman” • Komashaku brings up several passages explicitly describing Ichiro as a woman: “[his] brother’s temperament, like a woman’s” “if you approach life as a woman does”

19. What Links People To One Another

20. “What Links People To One Another” • As a man, Ichiro’s priorities and sense of personal fulfillment should stem from his work as a professor, but when Jiro fails to understand why his lectures do not make up for his unhappiness about his marriage, Ichiro replies that the most important thing in life is “the enjoyment of human feeling in a human manner” • This should be seen as characteristic of Soseki, who has indicated disinterest in occupations before (And Then)

21. “What Links People To One Another” (cont.) • Ichiro’s inability to enjoy the human feeling of love with his life is seen as a lack of meaning in life; Ichiro’s request that Jiro test her faithfulness should be perceived as the actions of a desperate and nearly crazed man • Komashaku compares Onao to Soseki’s wife Kyoko, neither of whom “possess the characteristic of womanly coquetry” (67)

22. “What Links People To One Another” (cont.) • One can see from Onao’s reaction to Jiro (how upset she becomes, her suicidal ideation) that she is also very troubled by the situation with Ichiro and believes she is being alienated • Thus, Onao and Ichiro suffer from the same disease, unaware of the other’s feelings • Ultimately, the patriarchal dynamic prevents Onao and Ichiro from communicating their grief and ending the situation

23. The Positions of Men and Woman

24. “The Positions of Men and Woman” • In this society, women were property and must always defer to their husbands • As such, Ichiro is completely unable to open up to Onao lest he appear weak and feminine, as he does to Jiro and the reader, who know his plight • Ichiro reaches the conclusion that love is the only thing of value, and marriage is unnecessary, creating only problems • The greater theme of marriage is further explored in the proceedings for Osada’s wedding, which is poisoned by Ichiro’s negativity and Jiro’s ambivalence

25. The Misery of Marriage

26. “The Misery of Marriage” • Soseki’s thoughts on marriage are complex: one may have a happy marriage if they do not think too deeply or assert themselves too strongly (the Okadas), or they may have a marriage fraught with insecurities and anguish (Ichiro) • Osada’s marriage is presented as one that may go either way • Ichiro’s trip with H allows for the narration of the mental state he has arrived

27. “The Misery of Marriage” (cont.) • “The Wayfarer” was put on hiatus for two months before the final chapter, as Soseki’s ulcer began to flare up – as ulcers are stress-related, Komashaku takes this (along with the letters he wrote) as evidence that Soseki and Ichiro’s anguish had come to a climax

28. The Path Towards an Absolute State

29. “The Path Towards an Absolute State” • Ichiro states that his only recourse is “to die, to go mad, or to enter religion” • He cannot enter religion, as he cannot believe in God • God is too vague and humans, unable even to trust in the heart of their spouses, cannot find true absolution in renouncing themselves to such an insubstantial entity

30. “The Path Towards an Absolute State”(cont.) • Ichiro regards himself as superior to his wife in all ways, and had assumed he would adjust to him; when she does not, he finds himself isolated in his own home • Unable to give up the pursuit of happiness (feminine), he “tenaciously” pursues her heart • H finally says what we’ve all been thinking in the modern day: if she will not go to you, you must go to her

31. Taking The First Step

32. “Taking The First Step” • H relates the story of Mohammad and the Montain to Ichiro, and asks why he does not go to her since she will not come to him • Ichiro complains that it is her duty to come to him • This reveals Soseki’s own anguish over the question of what to do in this patriarchal scenario

33. “Taking The First Step” (cont.) • Komashaku claims that, because of Soseki’s unique predisposition towards egalitarianism, he was unable to exert control over his wife just because she was a woman • H therefore instructs Ichiro to go to her “for the sake of happiness” • This shows that Soseki places happiness above all else

34. Women Turn Perverse on Account of Their Husbands

35. “Women Turn Perverse on Account of Their Husbands” • Soseki’s writing “The Wayfarer” allowed for him to take various view points and to finally understand what causes problems within marriages: “the ineffectual way in which men and women have been situated in relation to each other” • Husbands function as the wife’s oppressor: when Ichiro realizes this, he wonders how he can expect her to come to him when he has “perverted” her

36. “Women Turn Perverse on Account of Their Husbands” (cont.) • Komashaku asserts that Soseki’s “no matter who he may be” here is meant as a reflection on how he himself has perverted his own wife • Women are placed in the impossible position where, no matter how poorly their husbands act (beating them, not appreciating them, etc.) they are not allowed to act poorly themselves • Komashaku equates Soseki’s realization that husbands damage their wives with the modern understanding of gender discrimination and patriarchy

37. “Women Turn Perverse on Account of Their Husbands” (cont.) • Soseki realizes that, as long as spouses are not equal, happiness is unattainable • Komashaku ties this back to Soseki’s ability to connect relations in the home to relations outside: the husband within the home occupies the position of the nobility outside, and the wife occupies the position of the peasants

38. “Women Turn Perverse on Account of Their Husbands” (cont.) • Viewed through the lens of Soseki’s animosity towards the wealthy and nobility (I Am A Cat), this realization of himself as the oppressor must have been doubly startling • Soseki/Ichiro realize that women are like “a potted plant” who must stay in one place until moved; this level of dependence necessitates protection and care on the part of the husband

39. “Women Turn Perverse on Account of Their Husbands” (cont.) • Komashaku brings up the example of domestic abuse, which has commonplace in those days and was not considered cruel: ahead of his time, Soseki realizes how terrible it most have been for his own wife and children

40. In the Flow of the Meiji Era

41. “In the Flow of the Meiji Era” • As the definitive period of modernization, the time period in which Soseki wrote “The Wayferer” has great bearing on Soseki’s own revelations • Meiji is when the women’s liberation movement was going on; Soseki had some contact with it but did not participate or endorse it • Soseki eventually comes to the inevitable conclusion that to attain that equality necessary for a happy marriage, he must step down as patriarch

42. “In the Flow of the Meji Era” (cont.) • In order to take the difficult step of giving up this power, Soseki concluded that one must work towards self-renunciation • By the end of the novel, both Soseki and Ichiro are working hard to pursue the path towards happiness and equality