(Kaleasha) Fate is everywhere whether it’s good or bad you cannot escape it. From a young age Sayuri has been touched by the cold hand of fate when she was known as Chiyo. “I knew something in her was changing quickly, but because of so much water in her personality this didn’t seem worrisome.” (11) Sayuri lost her mother at a young age causing her father to sell her sister Satsu and her to a geisha Okiya, and a prostitution house. Then for an even more cruel of a joke Satsu and Sayuri were then taken away from each other. “When we came to a halt before a doorway, Mr.Beku instructed me to get out. He climbed out before me, and then as if the day hadn’t been difficult enough, the worst thing of all happened. For when Satsu tried to get out as well, Mr.Beku turned and pushed her back with his long arm.”(36) Sayuri again loses more of her family. Later in the book she finds out her father dies leaving her as the last one in her family. If fate hadn’t done this Sayuri would have spent the rest of her time in the Okiya trying to get back home. She would have run away again and could have ended up getting beaten more than she originally did. Mother could have kicked her out. If she didn’t do that though she could have ended up as a very bad geisha, because throughout the first chapters of the book she uses them to get through her life. “The past was gone. My mother and father were dead and I could do nothing to change it. But I suppose that for the past year I’d been dead in a way too. And my sister yes she was gone; but I wasn’t gone… I’d felt as though I’d turned around to look in a new direction, so that I no longer faced backward toward the past, but forward towards the future.”(108) She thinks this after realizing her past died with her parents and her fate took a new turn towards being a geisha and being the Chairmans. “From the moment the Chairman had first spoken to me, I’d forgotten that I was watching for a sign about my future. But when I saw the bundle he held in his hand, it looked so much like the shrouded moth, I knew I’d come upon the sign at last.”(113) Before that Chiyo found a dead moth that she thought of as herself, so she decided that it was a sign to look for her future. Fate intervened and had the Chairman come to her and talk with her because according to Sayuri men usually ignore young girls. “Ordinarily a man on the streets of Gion wouldn’t notice a girl like me.”(110) So when he decided to stop and give her money and his handkerchief he had given her more than that he had given her her path to follow in life.”I prayed that they permit me to become a geisha somehow.I would suffer through any training, bear up any hardship, for a chance to attract the notice of a man like the Chairman again.”(114) She said she would go through hardships and fate made sure that happened because after she does become a geisha she was attacked by a Baron, Hatsumomo would follow and try to disrupt her, the Okiya was even closed due to bombings and a war that was raging. “He brought out from his pocket a slip of paper and began to read a long list of misdeeds our Okiya had committed… General Tottori was taken into custody this morning, you’d better hurry and hide our best things or they’ll be gone tomorrow.” (335) In the end she did end up with the one she was fated with. “But life softened into something much more pleasant after the Chairman became my dana.”(419) After Sayuri had to spend those miserable years of fate testing her after she had reached her destiny life calmed for her so she may enjoy her fate. Fate was a necessary part of this story because in the end you notice the little clues of the direction her life is heading and can see her life had taken its path perfectly.
(Kaleasha) Women’s roles have changed over the years but it is still the same at its core. In Japan at that time it was required for all women to be respectful of the males in society and to serve their every whim and need. When Sayuri was still Chiyo she was expected to serve tea to the men that would enter her small house. “Chiyo chan get the doctor a cup of tea.”(11) Chiyo was told by her father to get the doctor a cup of tea. He never asked her please, or even thank you she was forced to obey or she would have been punished like the other girls. Even when they played on the boats which was a taboo they would be punished very harshly. “Fishermen are very superstitious. They especially don’t like woman to have anything to do with fishing, Mr. Yamamura found his daughter playing in his boat one morning. He beat her with a stick and then washed the boat with sake and lye so strong it bleached streaks of coloring from the wood… He had a priest come and bless it.” (15) Sayuri tells this story as she must do the same and spit on the floor of a fishery. If Mr.Tanaka had not been there she would also have been beaten and run out of the fishery just so it wouldn’t be tainted. She also has to take special care for the men she meets so she doesn’t disrespect them but they can use her as an object all they want just like with all women. “In the past men had taken no more notice of me on the streets than if I had been a pigeon; now they were watching me when I passed them. I found it strange to be the object of attention after being ignored for so long.”(106) Thats just the beginning, men would ignore her when she was a child in need, but now that she has a pretty face they all just swarm to get her attention. Throughout her career she was even forced to bring men to the bathroom, pour them sake help them stand and all the while they have to keep them entertained as well. Then when she gets a danna she must be sure that she keeps him happy and accomplishes all of his needs and not worry about her own. Like when Mameha was still with the Baron he had made her get abortions and would blame her for making him mad and make him wait. “We certainly can’t have little Barons running around now can we?But really Mameha I don’t see why you couldn’t have reminded me about this in private… We were having such a nice evening until Mameha started talking about things that ought to have been kept private. Well Mameha I have the proper punishment for you. You’re no longer invited to my party this year. What’s more I want you to send Sayuri in your place.”(252) Before this the Baron was the one who kept questioning Mamaha about why she couldn’t come. I think incorporating this theme so thoroughly throughout this book lets you see how much of a struggle Sayuri had to both keep up her reputation and to chase after her dreams because being a geisha meant she had no choice at all about who she could be with and with the gender roles in place, she had to be careful about how she went about getting to see the chairman and getting rid of Nobu. She had to give up a lot of herself just to please her customers and to still have hope. (Kaleasha) The themes of fate is everywhere whether it’s good or bad and woman’s roles have changed over the years really depend on each other. A womans fate would be affected by what she was allowed or not allowed to do in the country she was in. Like when Sayuri came to america because of the chairman.”In August of the same year I moved to New York City to set up my own very small teahouse for Japanese businessmen and politicians travelling through the United States.”(426) Sayuri had to move here so the chairman’s son in law would marry his daughter. Since Sayuri was pregnant at the time they were afraid a scandal might occur with the child. Since Sayuri is a woman she was also not treated nicely by many men like when she was at the Barons, with the minister, the doctor, the general, but she was forced to be with these people because of her job as a Geisha. Though it was also fated for it to happen so she would become the chairman’s. “When I saw you there with the minister, you had a look in your eyes just like the one I saw so many years ago at the Shirakawa stream you seemed so desperate like you may drown if someone didn’t save you”(417) If Sayuri had not been with the minister she would not have ended up with her true fate. She would be stuck with Nobu instead of who she loved. Sayuri had to use gender roles when deciding to go along with this plan. She had to have a man accompany her as proper around the city and back to there. It was also fate that let her see that theater though, because she needed a place that she could set this trap for Nobu and she found it right away. “When I first stepped inside I didn’t think very much about it. But after the door banged shut ....I had an image of myself lying there ...as the door creaked open allowing the sun to hit us.”(397) She was able to see herself completing her goal from such an insignificant place. There are also many more places where these themes interact beautifully. Like when Sayuri was little and standing on the bridge looking for signs of her future. Due to her being a little girl no one paid attention to her, but due to fate the Chairman comes and speaks with her. Making sure that no one else would hurt her or her chances of becoming a geisha which the chairman inspires within her. These also show up all throughout her life Sayuri is supposed to respect everyone and be kind. Thats what her parents taught her and it helps her on her line to her fate. If Sayuri had been like Hatsumomo she would not have made it to top geisha and she would have scared away Nobu making sure that she would never see the chairman again. Theme - Appearance vs. Reality (Laura) - One of the first things that Chiyo learned when she arrived in Gion as only a child was that appearances don’t always match reality: “ And her clothing wasn’t the only extraordinary thing about her; her face was painted a kind of rich white, like the wall of a cloud when lit by the sun...And then she said: ‘Mr.Bekku, could you take out the garbage later? I’d like to be on my way.’ There was no garbage in the entryway; she was talking about me.” (37) In this quote where Chiyo meets Hatsumomo for the first time introduces the theme of appearances vs. reality which is developed further throughout the book. One example of the theme developing is while at the retreat with Nobu, the Chairman, the Minister, and other geisha, Sayuri/Chiyo is struggles to come to terms with the fact that her destiny lies with Nobu and not the chairman, “How strange it seemed, when I thought about it, that Nobu understood me so little… The Chairman was the only man I’d ever entertained as Sayuri the geisha who had also known me as Chiyo - thought it was strange to think of it this way, for I’d never realized it before. What would Nobu have done if he had been the one to find me that day at the Shirakawa Stream? Surely he would have walked right past… and how much easier it might have been for me if he had.” (394) At this point in the book Sayuri knows that soon enough Nobu will propose as her danna and while she doesn’t want this to happen, at the same time she knows that Nobu would be destroyed if she ruined the image of her in his mind. Developing theme, this quote starting off by stating that Nobu doesn’t understand Sayuri, showing that if you know a person only by appearance you may in fact not know them at all. This is a change in the theme of appearance vs reality, because before Nobu clearly cared for Sayuri, but he often thought she had more power or was more than what she was, an example of this would be when Nobu is upset at the thought that Sayuri would have slept with the Minister had Nobu told her, “ I don’t often misjudge people. If you aren’t the women I think you are then this isn’t the world I thought it was. Do you mean to say you could consider giving yourself to a man like the Minister? Don’t you feel there’s right and wrong in this world, and good and bad?” (387). Nobu in thinking that Sayuri had free choice in the situation clearly did not understand the reality of her job as a geisha, since in truth most everything she did was out of little free will. Along with this Nobu didn’t seem to understand Sayuri because he knew nothing of her history and considered her almost nothing more than a exotic doll that he loved, which was shown when he scowled at Sayuri when she looked, “ like a peasant!”(351) and also when he referred to her home as Gion and implied that she had never been outside of it. This shows appearance vs. reality because Nobu thought he knew who Sayuri was but in reality he saw her as he wanted to; as a beautiful, clever geisha that fit his perfect ideal of a woman. Yet for Sayuri this was not who she really was, but rather who she was in the life she was stuck living. So basically, what these examples from throughout the book show is that if someone understands a person only by appearances you may not understand them at all, because often appearances act as a mask to reality. Theme - Betrayal (Laura)- With Chiyo’s youth being stolen from her after being sold away from her family by her father and Mr.Tanaka it would be expected in a way for Chiyo to be angry and feel betrayed. However, as the days go by in Chiyo’s new life it becomes clear that the theme of betrayal has an all new meaning: “ So I stepped back and sank onto the stone step of the entryway, with the door against my back, and began to cry. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mr.Tanaka. He had taken me away from my mother and father, sold me into slavery, sold my sister into something even worse. I had taken him as a kind man. I had thought he was so refined, so worldly. What a stupid child I had been!” (82). In this quote Chiyo allows herself to cry about the past yet what this quote first introduces is the message that betrayal can be caused more by the realization that what you thought was right and true in reality isn’t. This quote shows this because while Chiyo is angry with Mr.Tanaka she seemed more upset with the fact that she believed he was a kind and great man but in reality he wasn’t kind at all as he sold her away from her family. This theme was further developed when Nobu told Chiyo/Sayuri that he hoped to become her danna after the company recovered from the war. While Chiyo knew that Nobu would be a good danna for her she couldn’t let go the dream she had of the Chairman and thought endlessly about what Nobu as her danna would mean for her, “ If my mother had lived I might be a wife and mother at the seashore myself, thinking of Kyoto as a faraway place where the fish were shipped -- and would my life really be any worse? Nobu had once said to me, ‘ I’m a very easy man to understand, Sayuri. I don’t like things held before me that I cannot have.’ Perhaps I was just the same; all my life in Gion, I’d imagined the Chairman before me, and now I couldn’t have him.” (409) This quote from Sayuri is important because it relates Nobu and Sayuri’s feelings of betrayal and as a result develops the theme further. Nobu looked at Sayuri as beautiful, clever and different from all other geisha and that was something he needed and hoped for. So as a result, when he couldn’t become Sayuri’s danna the first time he felt betrayal, not by Sayuri but by the false hope he had. This example in turn relates to Sayuri because of her feelings towards Nobu becoming her dana, “ Compared with the sorts of men so many geisha had suffered through the years, Nobu was probably a very desirable danna. But could I bear to live a life in which my hopes had been extinguished forever?” (395). This quote relates to Nobu’s feelings of betrayal because Chiyo is not upset because Nobu is becoming her danna, she is upset because if he did become her danna he would in turn betray her by making her dreams of the Chairman impossible. In the end, the theme of betrayal becomes more clear when Chiyo has sex with the Minister in an attempt to prevent Nobu from becoming her dana finds out that Pumpkin is not the friend Chiyo thought she was because instead of following Chiyo’s plan, Pumpkin leads the Chairman to find Chiyo and the Minister instead. Chiyo after feeling shocked and betrayed asks Pumpkin why she would act that way to a friend and Pumpkin replied, “ I thought you were my friend too, once. But that was a long time ago.” (406) At the time Chiyo felt betrayed because Pumpkin, in her mind, was her friend and should have acted in a way that helped Chiyo not hurt her. All and all however, Chiyo’s plan to betray Nobu worked because when Nobu found out of Chiyo sleeping with the Minister it destroyed the perfect image he had of her causing the feeling of betrayal to be too strong for him to forgive her. So to restate, theme of betrayal in Chiyo’s life taught her that often it is the people you trust and put your faith in that betray you the most, because the betrayal comes not from their actions alone, but also from the expectations you believed not meeting the reality. Themes- Appearance vs Reality & Betrayal (Laura)- The themes appearance vs reality and betrayal act together in the book because they directly relate in the sense that when appearances do not match reality betrayal is likely to follow. The two themes first help to develop each other when Chiyo meets Mr.Tanaka. To Chiyo who has lived her whole life in a poor fishing community Mr.Tanaka appeared to be a grand man that held a promise of a good life with more to hold than just the seashore. While Mr. Tanaka never completely lied to Chiyo it was her own expectations based on Mr.Tanakas appearances that lead her to feel betrayed when the reality wasn’t what she believed it would be: “ So I stepped back and sank onto the stone step of the entryway, with the door against my back, and began to cry. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mr.Tanaka. He had taken me away from my mother and father, sold me into slavery, sold my sister into something even worse. I had taken him as a kind man. I had thought he was so refined, so worldly. What a stupid child I had been!” (82). The two themes work together again in the middle of the book when Chiyo realizes that perhaps the Chairman does not share the same feelings for her as she has for him, “ Up until this moment I’d somehow imagined that the Chairman valued my company as much as Nobu did. Now I had to wonder whether it had all been an illusion, and Nobu was the only one who cared.” (287). For this example the two themes work together because Chiyo had believed for a long time that the Chairman also enjoyed her company at parties, yet when she finds out only Nobu invites her she felt betrayed because what she believed to be true did not match reality. Finally, by the end of the book the two themes come together one last time in a twist that Chiyo never saw coming. Waiting in the Teahouse for Nobu to arrive instead the Chairman walks in and begins the story of what truly happened after the day he first meet Chiyo at the stream, “ And when I realized how he felt, the way he looked at you that evening...well, I knew in a moment that I couldn’t possibly take him away from him the thing he so clearly wanted. It never diminished my concern for your welfare. In fact, as the years have gone by, it had become increasingly difficult for me to listen dispassionately while Nobu talks about you.” (415) This quote further develops the themes appearance vs reality and betrayal because in this quote the Chairman explains that while it seemed that he didn’t care for Chiyo in the slightest sense, in reality he cared greatly for her and only acted the opposite in order to avoid betraying Nobu. Throughout the book the themes of appearance vs reality and betrayal offered complex looks into what is real and what friendship and truth is worth. However, overall the message seems to be clear that when appearances, or what is originally thought true, don’t match reality, then betrayal is likely to follow. |