This latter part of the novel is related by Sensei in the form of his long written testament that the narrator is reading aboard the train as he steams toward Tokyo. Once on board, he takes out Sensei's letter and reads it through from the start. Rushing to the station, the narrator boards the first train for Tokyo. “By the time this letter reaches you, I’ll be gone from this world. Leafing through the pages, a line near the end catches his eye. Stealing away from his father's bedside, the narrator opens the letter to find it's the previously-promised accounting of Sensei's past. Some days later, a thick letter arrives by registered mail from Sensei. Unable to leave his father, the narrator refuses Sensei's request, first by telegram and then by a letter detailing his situation. Shortly thereafter, a telegram from Sensei arrives, summoning the narrator to Tokyo. All are moved when news comes of the suicide ( junshi) of General Nogi Maresuke, who takes his own life to follow his Emperor (the Meiji Emperor) in death. Summer wears on, and the rest of the family is summoned home in anticipation of the father's final hour. While not expecting any favorable response on the matter of employment, he does at least expect some reply and is disappointed when none arrives. At his mother's urging, he writes to Sensei to request assistance in finding a position in Tokyo. At the same time, his father's condition holds him close to home in the country. From his bed, he follows the papers as the Emperor declines and then passes away.Īfter the Emperor's passing, the narrator is pressured by his mother to secure employment to put his father at ease. As the weeks go by, the narrator's father gradually loses his vigor and becomes bedridden. They set a date for a graduation celebration, only to have their plans put on hold by news of the Meiji Emperor falling ill. His father, who had been in ill health, is up and about, enjoying a respite from his illness. The narrator returns home to the country after graduation.
Kokoro connect manga ending full#
However, he does promise that one day, when the time is right, he will divulge in full the story of his past. He also cautions the narrator that intimacy and admiration will only lead to future disillusionment and disdain. He refuses to talk of his deceased friend and is reluctant to explain his own reclusion and lack of occupation. At the same time, Sensei insists on maintaining a certain distance. Over subsequent months and years, through periodic visits, the narrator comes to know Sensei and his wife quite well. On his next visit, when he again finds Sensei away, he learns from Sensei's wife that Sensei makes monthly visits to the gravesite of a friend.
Several weeks after his own return to Tokyo, he makes an initial visit, only to find Sensei away. He receives an affirmative, though less enthusiastic than hoped for, response. On parting in Kamakura, as Sensei prepares to return home to Tokyo, the narrator asks if he can call on Sensei at his home sometime. As they grow closer, he comes to refer to the man as “Sensei.” After some days, he finds occasion to make the man's acquaintance. He sees the same man each day thereafter, though no longer with his foreign companion. One day, after finishing his usual swim in the sea, he takes notice of a man in the changing house who's there with a foreign guest, preparing to head for the water. The narrator has been left on his own in Kamakura after his friend, who invited him to vacation there, is called home by his family. In this letter Sensei reveals, in keeping with an earlier promise, the full story of his past. Part three, which makes up the latter half of the novel, is a long confessional letter written by Sensei to the narrator. The first two are told from the perspective of the narrator, relating his memories of Sensei, an older man who was a friend and mentor during his university days. Other important themes in the novel include the changing times (particularly the modernization of Japan in the Meiji era), the changing roles and ideals of women, and intergenerational change in values, the role of family, the importance of the self versus the group, the cost of weakness, and identity. It continues the theme of isolation developed in Natsume's immediately preceding works, here in the context of interwoven strands of egotism and guilt, as opposed to shame. The work deals with the transition from the Japanese Meiji society to the modern era, by exploring the friendship between a young man and an older man he calls " Sensei" ("teacher" or "master").
0 kommentar(er)
