The passage shows the contrast between innocence of the young love and love of the adulthood, which the narrator had experienced, by his description of moment when he notices Fujio’s name from the lantern light, featuring on girl’s breast which neither the boy, the girl, nor the children looking at them notices.
The author describes the innocence of the young love as he describes the play of the lantern. As the passage begins, the narrator notices the name “Fujio” was “clearly discernible” in a “faint greenish light that fell on the girl’s breast” as Fujio gives a bell cricket to her. The narrator delineates how the boy’s lantern which inscribed his name cut in green papered aperture was onto her white kimono, and the girl’s lantern also shines
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The narrator feels bad that neither Fujio nor Kiyoko will “ever know” that their name had been written on each other, advices to Fujio that “there are not many bell crickets” in the world, and says he will find a girl that’s “a grasshopper” whom he think is a bell cricket”. He tries to deliver a fact, which he believes Fujio will find a girl that’s ordinary whom he think is special. For a kid’s eye, everything he or she sees is viewed as special one, and Fujio who was still innocent view the one he loves special, regardless of her actual character. However the narrator continues, stating with “wounded heart”, Fujio will see the bell cricket as a grasshopper. This saying which the narrator states is highlighting significantly to the world of adulthood. Here “with wounded heart” clearly shows the pain from the past love and experience, and it centers to darker side of adulthood. The passage was told by the narrator’s point of view, which conveys an idea that he also experienced this situation, and tends to give advice to ones who will enter the world of adulthood in the future. The narrator then finds it a pity that they will “have no way to remember” the moment of playing with the lanterns, when the name was written by the lantern on a girl’s breast. As mentioned before, the moment of playing with the lanterns symbolises the child-like feature and innocence, and the name written by the