When it came to this week's readings, my overall impression of the theme was the imperfections of love and being alive. As The Ice Man and Straw Husband demonstrated, being married with the one you love doesn't equal a happy ever after. Sometimes letting love triumph over everything else can leave much to be desired. It becomes isolating when one person becomes your whole world. In The Ice Man, we see that the ice man seems to not fit into the world him and the narrator share. They are scorned by their peers and the woman's family. They're on their own. When the couple ventures to the South Pole, while the woman feels more isolated, the ice man finally feels in his element. This then takes up their lifestyle, leaving the woman cold and alone in a place where she literally can't communicate with anyone. In Straw Husband, while the relationship seems fine t first, the couple running together in the park, the story takes a turn when the two are alone and the wife makes a mistake with the straw husband's car. He is suddenly not the kind, doting partner he seemed. Rather he is stubborn, passive aggressive, and uncommunicative. He spills out his anger until he's a pile of straw. He doesn't accept his wife's apology until pages later. He isn't content until she has given up on fighting. These stories are about a man's overall needs and priorities overshadowing the happiness of his wife.
In the kabuki Dojoji as well as Smartening Up, we see the effects of a woman scorned by love. Dojoji tells the story of a woman betrayed by a man she loved and turns into a serpent demon to destroy his life. In Smartening Up, we have a woman who is plucking and perming every part of herself in response to being cheated on and dumped by a loser. She tries to become beautiful because she thinks her lack of attention to her appearance is what made her ex-boyfriend betray her. The ghost of her aunt, however, reminds her of the Dojoji tale. Thus, the woman becomes a sort of demon herself. Taking back her beauty, and in this case her hair. Becoming a demon is merely a form of empowerment after heartbreak. It's interesting that these women feel they have to become a terrifying beast just to make the men that broke their heart feel regret.
Then we have the story of The Greengrocer's Daughter and Silently Burning. Silently Burning references the tale of Oshichi and her tragic love story that we learned about in The Greengrocer's Daughter. Our main character works as a temple calligrapher and witnesses as the legacy of Oshichi inspires (mostly) women to visit the Oshichi Temple she works at, praying for success in love. The narrator and I had similar reactions to this. After reading the tragic love story of Oshichi, I too wonder why women choose to pray to her. Oshichi desperately loved someone and attempted to set fire to her home in order to see him again. In doing so she was caught and burnt at the stake. her lover hadn't found out about this for months and immediately tried to end his life when he did. Instead, he became a monk. So, the woman died and her lover was a depressed monk for the rest of his life. I too don't quite understand why that's something to aspire to in one's love life. Perhaps the narrator of Silently Burning and I share a lack of interest in obsessive love that clouds one's judgment past the point of no return.
While love does not always end up to be as dramatic and sometimes as tragic as some of the stories read this week, it is true that it is not an automatic happily ever after either. Sometimes love heats up so much that it burns everything else down. Other times, love once filled with deep understanding freezes over, leaving the two people involved wondering whether or not they fit in the life they built together. No good can come from biting one's tongue. All of these stories include people unable to express themselves. Whether it be to their lover or to society. A lack of communicating one's needs will lead to disaster.
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