Praise Of Shadows

Habitually, in both fictional and nonfictional writings, individuals try to identify themselves by using aspects of their life. In the novel, Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, the main character, Mikage identifies herself within her own kitchen. It is always Mikage's first instinct to gather information about other people by looking at their kitchen, as if one were to gather information about Mikage from her kitchen. Similarly, In the essay, In Praise of Shadows, written by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Tanizaki identifies himself within the Japanese culture, as he compares the sense of beauty that is found within the Japanese culture with the Western culture. Both writings are fairly similar as both show the distinction between how people identify important aspects in their lives.
In Kitchen, Mikage realizes that not everyone can understand who an individual is and what makes that individual who they are. Additionally, not everyone can

She begins to realize this when Yuichi is helping her with her change of address cards. She begins to ponder about how Yuichi’s girlfriend said that he was incapable of caring more for a girl than a fountain pen. Mikage's realizes his girlfriend doesn’t really understand him and doesn’t understand some parts in his life. Mikage states, “The quality and importance of a fountain pen meant to him something completely different from what it mean to her”(Yoshimoto, 29). Different people identify with different things, which might be peculiar to others. Yuichi’s girlfriend might have found the fountain pen unimportant but in Yuichi’s world, it might mean the world to him, as the kitchen means the world to Mikage. Through good times and bad Mikage always looks to the kitchen for comfort. Mikage proclaims, “I listened. From inside came the sound of happy voices at work, soup boiling, knives and pots clanging. It was a kitchen. I