The Dancing Girl of Izu free essay sample

When I first read this story in high school, I was hooked by his timeless lyrical style and exoticism. I like his style. It’s so beautiful and sorrowful. When I read his short stories, I would feel very calm, and I could even feel what the characters in the stories felt. I like that feeling, because I’m also a dissociable boy like him when I was young. But I can imagine he had a much more sorrowful experience than me. Yes, it was true or he couldn’t write so a sorrowful story like â€Å"The Dancing girl of Izu†. His words would have resonance for me, I had an unhappy childhood, some pictures made me scared even though I am twenty now. Compared to Kawabata, my experience isn’t worth a saying. His life was blighted by sorrow and loneliness, his childhood was repressed and solitary, he was born in Osaka, Japan, into a well-established doctor’s family. We will write a custom essay sample on The Dancing Girl of Izu or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page He became an orphan at four, and then he lived with his grandparents. He also had an old sister who was taken by an aunt, but she died when he was eleven, and he only saw his old sister once when he was ten. His grandmother died when he was seven, and his grandfather died when he was fifteen. These sorrowful experiences made him become dissociable and distorted. If I were him, I don’t know if I could face it. Then Kawabata started to try writing some short stories. When he was still a university student, he re-established the Tokyo University literary magazine â€Å"New Tide of Thought†. There he published his first short story â€Å"A View from Yasukuni Festival†. After he graduated, Kawabata wrote â€Å"The Dancing Girl of Izu† in 1926 and received the acclaim. This story is very short, it’s about a high school student meets a young dancer on a walking trip down Izu Peninsula, and he falls in love with this young dancer finally. You could read whole story in one hour, it’s very simple, there aren’t any words about love, but you could feel that they fell in love with each other slowly, no epic promise, no honeyed words, but this story is very touching. Every time I read â€Å"The Dancing Girl of Izu†, I would be touched by their words and behaviors, their eyes and their soliloquies. I never get tired of reading this book. When the hero first saw the young dancing girl, he was well disposed towards her. The dancing girl was perhaps sixteen, it was a beautiful age. The hero sat and watched the dancing girl very closely and he did surrender himself to young dancing girl’s charms. When the hero heard they would leave, he felt very impatient. His mind danced off after hearing them getting to leave, he cut to the heart to let them go, especially the dancing girl. He couldn’t fall sleep for a long time that night, â€Å"The rain quieted to a sprinkle, the sky over the pass cleared. I felt it could wait no longer. † (Seidensticker, 68) That was a gloomy rainy night. Time hours wore on, the hero felt more and more sad. Because he knew they can’t be together. There is a wall plug in their midst. â€Å"Dear me, the child’s come to a dangerous age,† the older woman said, arching her eyebrows as she tossed over a cloth. The girl wiped tensely at this tea. The remark somehow startled me. I felt the excitement aroused by the old woman at the tea-house begin to mount. †(Seidensticker, 70) Maybe you don’t understand the behavior that older woman did, why did this older woman arch her eyebrows suddenly? The attitude changed a lot. Because the hierarchy and the feudal system their love affair is predestined to be impossible, artists are the most low-class occupation at that time in Japan. The older woman feels this dancing girl had grown fond of the young high-school student, so she just wants to tell a joke about them. But suddenly she realized that their occupation is so low-class, then she just shut up. And also the dancing girl knows that, so she wiped tensely at that tea. The remark somehow startled the hero. He felt the excitement aroused by the old woman at the tea-house begin to amount. Then the older woman changed the topic immediately. These behaviors indicate that the hierarchy and the feudal system are so bad for people at that time in Japan. It made my heart ache to see such scene. Distinctions between social classes were rigid and clearly defined. Actually, when I read this story, I would always thought of my first girlfriend. I think our story is very similar to this story, she has sparkling big dark eyes and double eyelids like this dancing girl, and it’s so beautiful. Her eyes always sparkled as she gazed at my eyes without blinking when I held her close in my arms. It’s so pretty, I missed her so much. This paragraph reminds me of her cute face and our sorrowful but happy story: we spent an unforgettable time together for about only 21 days. I never forgot that. On the summer of 2012, I came back to my hometown to see my parents and my relatives, I was so happy, you could say this is a long vacation. I never imagined meeting her that day. My best friend treated me to drink hot tea in the coffeehouse, he said he also invited two girls to come, they are his friends. Then I met my first girlfriend, I had grown fond of this girl when I first saw her. She is so cute; I like to see her smile. Then she took down my phone number, she said she was also well disposed towards me. I was so excited that I can’t fall sleep that night. So we just started to date in public, we fell in love with each other slowly. But there are only twenty-one days left at that time, it meant that after twenty-one days, I had to go back to here-America. We are both so sorrowful, she still wanted to by my girlfriend. She told me: â€Å"I love you, very, very much, I just want to be with you . Can we still keep the relationship? I don’t want to lose you. I will try my best to wait for you, until you came back again. † I didn’t know what to say. She was in China and I was in America, how could we maintain relationship? Off-site love? It was so hard to maintain relationship. But she said: â€Å"I trust you, and trust me, please. I will wait for you. † She was a girl of settled convictions. I was touched by her words. Actually, I really wanted to be with her, I didn’t want to lose her. I was touched by her words. I promised. But finally I gave her the air. When I thought of my words I said at that time, I felt extremely embarrassed. I thought our love affair is predestined to fail finally, I didn’t want her to wait for me, and I didn’t want to waste her time. We are both so young, things always change. But I felt so sorry about her; I didn’t know whether I did wrong. I don’t know. I just missed her, very, very much. Like this hero, he fell in love with that dancing girl at first sight and it was his first love, and he was not supposed to fall in love with this girl. Finally, the dancing girl waved her white handkerchief to the hero from quay as a goodbye. I couldn’t forget this sight. I was close to tears when I read here. Towards the end of the story they still didn’t tell how much they love each other. But they began to realize they had strong emotion with each other. Even though they can’t express in words, but for sure, there is a place for each other, deep inside their heart. He was not supposed to fall in love with this girl, and it was his first love, finally this love gave him nothing but misery. But I believe they had a happy and memorable time. I like this story very much, because it’s so sorrowful but beautiful and I had a same experience. When I was reading this story, I even thought of that young dancing girl is my first lover. It was just like a dream; finally you had to wake up. Maybe this is the reason why the people always miss the past people, past happiness. Anyway, I will cherish the memory of my first love, and this beautiful, sorrowful story. Citation . Kawamoto Saburo, â€Å"Yasunari Kawabata: Explorer of Death and Beauty, Japan Books News, No. 63, Spring 2010 2. Draft confirmed as Kawabata novel, The Japan Times, 2012-07-15 3. The Dancing Girl of Izu (and other stories),Translated by J. Martin Holman(as the Dancing Girl of Izu) Washington: Counterpoint, 1998 4. â€Å"The Izu Dancer† by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Edw ard Seidensticker. Reprinted with permission of The Asia Society from Perspective of Japan, originally published by THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, January 1955, for Intercultural Publications. Copyright 1955 by The Asia Society, N. Y.