Analysis Of The Samurai's Garden By Gail Tsukiyama
Beauty deceives. Those who look the most beautiful end up acting shallow and judgmental, but people who appear unattractive at first glance turn out to show the greatest beauty. People cannot always define comeliness as a well-proportioned face, long, silky hair, or a slender body; it can come in the form of hard work, emotional strength, humor, or intelligence. The Samurai’s Garden, written by Gail Tsukiyama, features a theme of finding underlying beauty in people and objects typically viewed as ugly.
Yuri Kochiyama is a Japanese-American civil rights activist, and author of “Then Came the War” in which she describes her experience in the detention camps while the war goes on. December 7th, is when Kochiyama life began to change from having the bombing in Pearl Harbor to having her father taken away by the FBI. All fishing men who were close to the coast were arrested and sent into detention camps that were located in Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota. Kochiyama’s father had just gotten out of surgery before he was arrested and from all the movement he’d been doing, he begun to get sick. Close to seeing death actually, until the authorities finally let him be hospitalized.
Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, tells the story of a girl named Tally Youngblood who is only several weeks away from having a life-changing surgery completed; the people that undergo the operation have their faces and bodies modified to look conventionally attractive. It’s revealed later in the book--by former members of the “Pretty Committee”--that the surgeons alter the patient’s personality and reasoning as well. At the very beginning of Part, I there read a quote from Yang Yuan, taken from the New York Times; “Is it not good to make society full of beautiful people?” Westerfeld’s story explores the implications of a society where people are socially conditioned and made to think that they are naturally ugly; at the age of 16, they are made “pretty”, as stated earlier.
Although Sachi had not realized it at the time, this was a life changing decision. Her “courage” to run away from the societal pressures is a quality to be greatly valued in one. However, as Sachi runs from her death, she questions her decision of not taking her life. As she reflects upon this experience, she reveals to Stephen that “‘The greatest honor [she] could have given [her] family was that of [her] death, and [she] ran from it. [She] was frightened at not fulfilling [her] obligation, not giving ko to [her] parents.
As she is describing her memories about the disease with Stephen, Sachi devastatingly recalls, “The night I told Kenzo, he thought it was all a big joke. ‘But you look beautiful,’ he laughed. ‘Who put you up to this?’ Then I showed him. I will never forget the look in eyes when he realized it wasn’t a joke-- a look of both fear and betrayal” (Tsukiyama 136).
According to the Mental Health Foundation, “Friendship can play a key role in helping someone live with or recover from a mental health problem and overcome the isolation that often comes with it.” This displays how amity is an important factor when people are facing with obstacles in their lives. In the novel, The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama portrays the same idea through the character, Sachi who is an old woman with leprosy. Sachi becomes friend with Matsu, a house caretaker of the main character. Later on, she befriends Michiko, another woman with the same disease.
Beauty can be a part of every person's life one way or another. Amari and Polly both have been through the horror part but showed strength to push past it to gain the freedom that they wanted, the freedom representing the beauty aspect. They had it rough, especially Amari. From her watching her little brother Kawai being killed along with her mother and father, to losing Besa at the slave auctions, she never gave up. She said at the end of the book, “If this child is a boy, Amari thought, I shall name him Freeman.
Depending upon what society says is pretty is what everyone believes is beautiful, therefore, Ms. Tyler believes that she was not beautiful enough. (“The Eye of the
From the Kamakura Period of the late twelfth century to the Meiji Restoration in the nineteenth century, the samurai have held prominent positions as noble warriors in Japanese society. They have come to be famous in modern, Western pop culture as the fierce, stoic guards of feudal Japan, but their practices and rituals extended beyond wielding katanas and donning impressive armor. Samurai practices were rich and complex, with strict codes, ritual suicide, and a history of influencing culture and politics (“Samurai”). Samurai code was influenced by traditional Japanese culture, Zen Buddhism, and Confucianism. Bushido, or “Way of the Warrior,” was the code of conduct the samurai class were expected to uphold.
In this case, her beauty is a ticket to get violated either at home or outside. Last but not least, Sally gets abused by boys because of her beauty. In “The Monkey Garden”, a group of boys steal her keys. This next excerpt is the most shocking,
To carry out their ultimate goal, women had to be pretty in any way. To be pretty women would go as far as mutilating themselves’ to become pretty or beautiful.
Natural Beauty is Perfection Itself In the short stories “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the value of science over human life is established. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the characterization of beauty, emotion over love, versus intellect over science, and an exploration of creator over creation. He presents an idea about scientific research, especially regarding feminine beauty. These tales are told with a motive to give the audience a sympathetic understanding of women’s beauty; which is something precious and already the model of nature’s perfection.
Chung accepted herself the way she looked and learned that the definition of beauty is “one that embraces differences and includes every girl, who can hold her head up, sang ka pul-less and chinky-eyed” (108). She hoped that her awakening about true beauty and acceptance would also help other Asian females, especially her mother realize that they are beautiful just the way God created them (Finding My
Introduction In 1876, Captain Nathan Algren, an ex- United States Army Captain is traumatized by experience fighting in the civil war and Indian war. Algren accepts a job by a Japanese businessman to train the Imperial Japanese Army to inhibit a samurai rebellion, led by Katsumoto Moritsugu. He sails to Japan. Most of the soldiers being trained are just slightly better than peasants and farmers that are not experienced.
The narrator claims, that beauty is essential to give us a purpose of life. It has the ability to transform our surroundings, and get us to a higher spiritual level. He explores
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