The Story Archive

Grass on the Wayside

Natsume Sōseki · 1915 CE · Novel · Japanese · Modernist

Kenzō comes back from years of study abroad to a Tokyo teaching post, a wife he cannot talk to, and the foster father who raised him and now appears at the door wanting money on the strength of it. Relatives arrive in sequence with claims, and the old paperwork of his adoption is gone through again. Sōseki's only autobiographical novel, and the least consoling book he wrote.

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Attributes

Genre
Psychological
Theme
Memory & TimeGuilt & ConscienceIsolation & AlienationClass & Inequality
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Everyman
Plot structure
Confession
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe Letter
Conflict
vs Selfvs Person
Mode / tone
RealistElegiacIronic
Culture / tradition
Japanese

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