Plot
Chieko Sada is the daughter of Takichiro and Shige, who operate a kimono wholesale business in Kyoto. Now twenty, Chieko has known since she was in middle school that she was a foundling adopted by Takichiro and Shige. However, as told by Shige, they snatched Chieko when she was a baby "Under the cherry blossoms at night at Gion Shrine". The discrepancy on whether Chieko was a foundling or stolen is part of the plot and is revealed later in the story.
Soon after a chance encounter at Yasaka Shrine, Chieko learns of a twin sister Naeko, who had remained in her home village in Kitayama working in the mountain forests north of the city. The identical looks of Chieko and Naeko confuse Hideo, a traditional weaver, who is a potential suitor of Chieko. The novel, one of the last that Kawabata completed before his death, examines themes common to much of his literature: the gulf between the sexes and the anxiety its recognition brings.
The story is set in Kyoto, and incorporates various festivals celebrated there. One of these is the Gion festival which occurs in the book during July. As part of the Gion festival, there is a parade of floats constructed by various neighborhoods in Kyoto and one of Chieko fond memories is of Shin'ichi, who is interested in Chieko, participating as a festival boy. The Festival of the Ages is another important festival and this is where Hideo takes Chieko's twin, Naeko, to view the parade.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)