Thousand Cranes

“Chikako did not marry. Had the birthmark then governed her whole life? Kikuji never forgot the mark. He could sometimes imagine even that his own destinies were enmeshed in it.”

Kawabata uses a rhetorical question to show Kikuji’s uncertainty on the subject, and to encourage the reader to consider the subject matter thoughtfully as Kikuji does. In addition, he uses abrupt single clause sentences to convey information matter-of-factly. The destinies associated with the birthmark and its negative connotations evoke the theme of Legacy: Imperfect Transmission and Inevitability.

“‘But don’t you think it’s a little sad for the child?’

‘That’s exactly why we should use the child to get back at her. The child knows everything.’ […]

‘Suppose we have Kikuji here speak to his father.’

‘Try not to spread the poison too far, if you don’t mind.’ Even Kikuji’s mother had to protest.”

This quote introduces the cruelty and vindictiveness of Chikako’s character, as well as her willingness to use others to achieve her aims. Her callousness is emphasized by the repeated references to Fumiko as a “child,” therefore an innocent, and the juxtaposition to Kikuji’s mother’s more caring and sympathetic reaction. The fact that neither Fumiko nor Kikuji are spared the knowledge of their parents’ indiscretions despite their youth shows that they were not protected from the negative influences of their respective legacies, which impacts their romantic relationships as adults.

“Here, making tea for him, clean against the rankling histories of the middle-aged women, the Inamura girl seemed beautiful to him.”

The juxtaposition between Yukiko, to whom Kikuji is attracted, and the two older women who repel him illustrates the theme of The Juxtaposition of Beauty and Ugliness. The charged language contrasting cleanliness with “rankling histories” emphasizes the lingering disgust that Kikuji feels regarding his father’s affairs and his desire for a clean slate untainted by his father’s legacy.

“He was disgusted with himself for having let Chikako’s note lure him out; but the impression of the girl with the thousand-crane kerchief was fresh and clean.

It was perhaps because of her that the meeting with two of his father’s women had upset him no more than it had.

The two women were still here to talk of his father, and his mother was dead. He felt a surge of something like anger. The ugly birthmark came to him again.”

The juxtaposition between Kikuji’s negative feelings toward Chikako and himself and his impression of Yukiko is heightened by the use of evocative language such as “disgusted” and “fresh.” Kikuji, despite knowing Yukiko’s name, still refers to her by “the thousand-crane kerchief” for which he first noticed her. This motif is evoked again and its associations with the character of Yukiko reinforced.

“[O]ne’s defenses fell. Yet her obstinacy seemed to carry a threat.

Kikuji feared that the threat came from his own weakness. Weak and quivering, he could not really be angry at the importunate woman.

Had she sensed the weakness, and was she hastening to take advantage of it? […]

But the weakness was an oppressive burden to have to take with him.”

The word “weak” is repeated continually, making Kikuji’s musings, related through free indirect discourse, scream of self-recrimination. His anger at Chikako is diverted by his awareness of his own flaws, foreshadowing his continual inability to untangle himself from the web of her machinations.

“Keeping his father company, he had often been through the tea ceremony. He had never been tempted to take up the hobby himself, however, and his father had never pressed him. […]

There was a smell of mildew. The mats too seemed to be damp.”

This quote conveys the Decay of Traditions and Values. His father’s neglect and Kikuji’s own disinterest contribute to the general decline of the art of tea ceremonies that Kawabata observes in contemporary society. This degradation of cultural traditions is echoed in the strong sensory imagery of the mildewed tatami, indicative of the gradual decay of the structure.

“The dirtiness was not only in Chikako, who had introduced them. It was in Kikuji too.

He could see his father biting at her birthmark with dirty teeth. The figure of his father became the figure of Kikuji himself.”

Kikuji visualizes himself as a proxy for his father, echoing how Mrs. Ota sees him. The harsh language and evocative imagery clearly communicates Kikuji’s disgust with Chikako and with his father for sleeping with her. The “dirtiness” of the encounter, as well as the uncomfortable, quasi-incestuous nature of the imagined scene, creates a strong sense of taboo. Kikuji is tainted by association and by his father’s legacy.

“‘Why have I come, then? The things I do!’ […]



‘It’s good to hear you say that. It’s quite enough, just that. But I’ve been very unhappy. You must forgive me.’”

Mrs. Ota’s helplessness and misery are conveyed through her repeated, ongoing litany of self-recriminations and lamentations. The weakness of her character is brought to the fore, as is her commitment to the role of victim. Despite her guilt, she still continues to pursue Kikuji, creating a sense of inevitability and foreshadowing her impending suicide.

“The red sun seemed about to flow down over the branches. The grove stood dark against it. The sun flowing over the branches sank into his tired eyes, and he closed them. The white cranes from the Inamura girl’s kerchief flew across the evening sun, which was still in his eyes.”

Upon learning of Mrs. Ota’s death, Kikuji remembers the natural surroundings of their final parting. The red and white colors suffuse his final memories of Mrs. Ota with the beauty that he always saw in her, with the darkness of the grove providing a retrospectively foreboding contrast. The cranes he saw, or imagines that he saw, evoke a sense of parting while also hinting to the new beginnings that Mrs. Ota’s absence might now allow.

“There were only the flowers Kikuji had sent the day before. He thought this strange. Had Fumiko left only his and taken away all the others? Or had it been a lonely memorial service? He suspected that it had.”

Fumiko’s loneliness and dislocation from any support network or family legacy is shown through the sparseness of her mother’s shrine and the isolation in which she grieves. The use of rhetorical questions shows the uncertainty of her situation and Kikuji’s own ignorance of her circumstances.

“Kikuji felt hot tears coming to his eyes. ‘I’ll take it, then, if I may.’

‘Mother will be happy.’

‘But it doesn’t seem likely that I’ll be using it for tea. I’ll have to turn it into a flower vase.’

‘Please do. Mother used it for flowers too.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t mean tea flowers. It seems sad for a tea vessel to be leaving the tea ceremony.’

‘I’m thinking of giving up tea myself.’”

Both Kikuji and Fumiko renounce their connection to the tea ceremony. Although they wish to preserve Mrs. Ota’s memory through passing on and accepting the Shino water jar, by eschewing the associated traditions, they are distancing themselves from the legacy of guilt, shame, and helplessness that she left behind. Kikuji’s sorrow for the fate of the Shino jar echoes his grief for Mrs. Ota.

“[A] displeasing picture flashed into Kikuji’s mind.

Fumiko’s father had died and Kikuji’s father had lived on; and might not this pair of Raku bowls have served as teacups when Kikuji’s father came to see Fumiko’s mother? Had they not been used as ‘man-wife’ teacups, the black for Kikuji’s father, the red for Fumiko’s mother?”

In this instance, the tea bowls symbolize the complex entanglement of romantic relationships that ensnared Fumiko and Kikuji’s parents. By using the tea bowls themselves, Fumiko and Kikuji are recreating the patterns that they’ve inherited. The red of Mrs. Ota’s teacup evokes her beauty, while the black of Kikuji’s father’s hints to Kikuji’s negative feelings toward his father.

“He was haunted by the thought that he was falling in love with Mrs. Ota, now that she was dead.

And he felt that the love was made known through the daughter, Fumiko.”

Just as Mrs. Ota in her grief saw Kikuji’s father in Kikuji, so too does the grieving Kikuji see Mrs. Ota in her daughter. The use of the word “haunted” is a double entendre; he is concerned and preoccupied with the thought of loving Mrs. Ota, but he is also haunted in a more literal way in that the memory of Mrs. Ota is akin to her ghost. Memory and ghost are put on equal footing, and the associations between death and love are reinforced.

“‘I’m different from Mrs. Ota. As things went with your father, I was a very light case. I see no reason to hide the truth—I was unfortunately not his favorite game. Just when it started, it was over.’

She looked down. ‘But I have no regrets. He was good enough to use me afterward, when it was convenient for him. Like most men, he found it easier to use a woman he had had an affair with.’”

In this quote the extent of Kikuji’s father’s callousness toward Chikako becomes apparent. The inequalities between men and women in contemporary society are made abundantly clear. Chikako claims to have no regrets and speaks of Kikuji’s father as though she does not resent him, however her treatment of Mrs. Ota shows that she merely displaced the focus of her vitriol toward a weaker target than the head of the household on whom she relied.

“‘When a person is too much of a man or too much of a woman, the common sense generally isn’t there.’

‘Oh? Common sense goes with neuters, then?’

‘Don’t be sarcastic. But neuters, as you call them, have no trouble understanding men and women too.’”

Chikako has embraced her “sexless” life since the end of her affair with Kikuji’s father and seems to accept that she no longer fits into the conventional mold of a woman—since her consciousness of her birthmark made her unable to fulfil the expected roles of wife and mother.

“‘Then it’s very much as if you killed her, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose that conclusion makes things easier for you. Well, I’m used to being the villain. When your father needed a villain, he found me quite ideal. It’s not exactly that I’m returning an old favor, but I’m here to play the villain today.’

Kikuji knew that she was giving vent to the old, deep jealousy.”

Despite Kikuji’s own guilt and Fumiko’s exhortation that blame does nothing to ease the burden of the deceased or those grieving, Kikuji ascribes blame to Chikako. Unlike Kikuji, however, Chikako is entirely unrepentant of her part in driving Mrs. Ota to suicide. Just as Mrs. Ota used Kikuji as a proxy to express her love for his father, so too does Chikako push him into the same role as his father, although her feelings are of resentment and bitterness. Her repeated use of the word “villain” shows her defensiveness and her determination to embrace the role thrust upon her just as she accepted her “sexless” life when the traditional role of a woman was denied her.

“The color of faded lipstick, the color of a wilted red rose, the color of old, dry blood—Kikuji began to feel queasy.

A nauseating sense of uncleanness and an overpowering fascination came simultaneously.”

This quote shows how the recent history of the tea bowl has tainted it despite its centuries of history. This symbolizes Kawabata observations that ancient Japanese traditions were tainted by association with the Imperial Japanese regime, despite predating it by many centuries. The color red, usually denoting value and divinity, has faded correspondingly with the culture, highlighting the Decay of Traditions and Values.

“Before Mrs. Ota’s ashes it had been a flower vase, and now it was back at its old work, a water jar in a tea ceremony.

A jar that had been Mrs. Ota’s was now being used by Chikako. After Mrs. Ota’s death, it had passed to her daughter, and from Fumiko it had come to Kikuji. It had had a strange career. But perhaps the strangeness was natural to tea vessels. In the three or four hundred years before it became the property of Mrs. Ota, it had passed through the hands of people with what strange careers?”

This quote details the convoluted recent history of the Shino water jar. The connections between the characters across the years and generations is emphasized and encapsulated in the vessel. However, the trials and tribulations faced by recent generations are also put into perspective by Kikuji’s acknowledgement of the tea ware’s long history. The characters become part of a larger whole by participating in the tea ceremony and adding themselves to the piece’s career, suggesting the importance of traditional cultural practices for connecting one with history.

“‘Fireflies? At this time of the year?’ She thrust her head forward. ‘It’s almost fall. There are still fireflies, are there? Like ghosts.’

‘The maid bought them.’

‘That’s the sort of thing maids do. If you were studying tea, now, you wouldn’t put up with it. You may not know, but in Japan we are very conscious of the seasons. If you had a wife, she wouldn’t depress you with end-of-the-season things.’”

Observance of seasons is an important element of Japanese culture, particularly in the tea ceremony. That Kikuji is unaware of this shows how removed he is from his cultural traditions, evoking the theme of Decay of Traditions and Values. That Chikako phrases the admonition as though Kikuji were a foreigner references the growing influence of Western culture to the detriment of Japanese customs in post-war Japan, particularly among younger generations. The mention of ghosts also calls to mind the dead characters whose legacy affects Kikuji and creates a solemn, haunting atmosphere.

“Everything went with the self-loathing that had become a part of Kikuji’s nature. […] she went on digging into the shadows.

He thought of turning on the lights in the room and at the veranda. It was strange to be here in the dark with Chikako. […]

Yet it seemed a nuisance to get up and turn on the lights. And Chikako, though she had spoken of the darkness the moment she came in, made no motion toward getting up.”

This section reinforces the connection between Kikuji’s self-loathing thoughts and the imagery of darkness and shadows. It also shows the harm that Chikako’s meddling causes to Kikuji and the associations between Chikako herself and the color black—the color of ugliness and unhappiness, particularly linked to her birthmark as a symbol of her inner darkness. Chikako is comfortable in the darkness and the shadows, showing that she is comfortable too with deception and subterfuge and unrepentant of her harmful actions.

“‘Your position is different. Shouldn’t I say position? I’ll say the degree of darkness, then.’

‘In a word, the guilt? But mine is deeper.’

‘No.’ She shook her head violently, and a tear spilled over, drawing a strange line from the corner of her left eye to her ear. ‘The guilt was Mother’s and she died—if we have to talk about guilt. But I don’t think it was guilt. Only sorrow.’

Kikuji sat with bowed head.

‘If it was guilt,’ she continued, ‘it may never go away. But sorrow will.’

‘When you talk about darkness, aren’t you making your mother’s death darker than you need to?’

‘I should have said the degree of sorrow.’”

This section contains numerous instances of repetition, with the concepts of “guilt” and “sorrow” discussed alongside references to “darkness.” The repetition reinforces the links between the different concepts and solidifies the way that melancholy or negative feelings are symbolized by darkness and the color black throughout the novel.

“She had suddenly paled as she fell toward him and recovered herself. Then, kneeling again, she had flushed; and in that time, it seemed, the perspiration had come out.”

Fumiko’s fall here parallels her mother’s collapse onto Kikuji’s lap in Part 2. Unlike her mother, however, Fumiko recovers herself rather than succumbing to weakness, illustrating the difference in their two personalities. Fumiko’s beauty is underscored by references to the symbolic colors red and white in her paling and flushing. Her sensuality is evoked through mention of her perspiration—a concrete reference to the physical body and its reactions.

“Always before, she had been Mrs. Ota’s daughter. Now, he had forgotten—the idea had quite left him that the mother’s body was in a subtle way transferred to the daughter, to lure him into strange fantasies.

He had at length made his way outside the dark, ugly curtain.

Had the breach in her cleanness rescued him?”

This quote shows the progression of Kikuji’s feelings for Fumiko by contrasting his new appreciation for her with his prior desire to use her as a proxy for her mother. The imagery of his escaping the dark curtain is a metaphor for his leaving behind the toxic entanglements that he inherited from his father, including his nostalgic but ultimately unreal posthumous love for Mrs. Ota. The breach of cleanness obliquely refers to his having slept with Fumiko and echoes the traditional wabi-sabi philosophy that beauty is enhanced by imperfection.