Although Kawabata was honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature for three of his novels, he preferred working in the genre of short stories, in particular, stories so small they can fit into the palm of one’s hand. These stories, which Kawabata continued to write over a span of fifty years, were not translated into…
Tag: The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket – Setting
Japan in the 1920s was in a state of great transition. World War I was over, but the country would never be the same. Just as the decade was one of great societal and cultural value shifts in the United States, so it was in Japan. Western influence was infiltrating every aspect of the Japanese…
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket – Literary Devices
Imagery Imagery is a technique a writer uses to involve the reader in the story. He does this by appealing to the reader’s senses. Kawabata uses imagery throughout his brief story, beginning with the first paragraph, in which he gives specifics. The university wall is not just a wall but a ‘‘tile-roofed wall’’; the fence…
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket – Themes
Fate Fate is destiny, an event or course of events that will happen in a person’s lifetime. Fate is predetermined; it cannot be altered or changed from what it was always meant to be. This is an integral belief in the traditional Japanese culture and a primary theme in Kawabata’s ‘‘The Grasshopper and the Bell…
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket – Characters
Children In addition to Fujio and Kiyoko, there are eighteen children on the embankment, chasing and catching insects. Using only the light that shines from their lanterns, they hunt the insects and capture them in tiny cages. Fujio Fujio is the young boy who gives Kiyoko what he believes is a grasshopper but which in…
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket – Summary
The opening scene of ‘‘The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket’’ finds the unnamed narrator walking outside the university (equivalent to the American high school). He turns to approach the upper school, which could mean the school that was situated higher up the hill, or it could mean a school attended by young teens, perhaps the…