Analysis of Kawabata's “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket”
This is “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” summary paper where we will see how the author Kawabata gives initially ordinary yet amazingly convincing record of a mysterious magical insect on a Japanese bank. Author’s utilization of narration, serene imagery, symbols plus the fascinating language all work together pleasantly, giving the story a more profound significance as opposed to what the reader at first might have expected about the occasions.
The sudden change of and the absorption in the development and color of the magical scene on the bank, presented in section two of the short story, faces the reader with a significant and surprising “play of light” indicating an exceptional takeoff from the story's deserted and perhaps dull first paragraph. This dull part of section one can be described by its melancholy introductory setting with its 'tile-roofed wall' just as the 'dusty clump of bushes', where the author is by himself alone, slowly strolling while hearing nothing but insects singing. At that point, further in the paragraph, there is an outstanding movement in the sentiment of the story where a feeling of force accumulates, drawing the reader’s interest toward what the storyteller has noticed the embankment. Obviously the storyteller's swiftness, displayed by his statement 'I hurried forward with short steps', illustrates this drive while the amazement of the scene, his eyes shining at the view, confirms it. At this point author informs the reader what they probably did not have expected having read the initial couple of lines of the story, that is, the unmistakably differentiating development and color of the occasions presented in the second paragraph. The 'bobbing cluster of beautiful varicolored lanterns', the playing kids and the style based on color and development, appeared by the perception of an 'insect chase' and the various colors present, and further represents this skillfully accomplished and unforeseen contrast.
Hence the impact of this utilization of complexity catches the reader quickly, appearing there is substantially more character and tasteful magnificence to the story than what may have at first been expected and all in the short space of less than two complete paragraphs. Obviously now in the story, the narrator has expressed something extraordinarily visual.
In the next section the author presents a part of the scene, concentrating especially on the kids, that gives a more profound significance to their activities than what may have been anticipated, when the reader first experienced them, as only the innocent kids playing. It is noticeable the image of the kids on the bank appeared in this paragraph, while surpassing the reader's original beliefs, doesn't fit the translation of the occasion as anything over how they are apparently being portrayed. Plainly this occasion is tranquil, fun loving and central however nothing indicates beyond this. This can be seen by the storyteller as it were portraying what he sees, holding on the calmness of the images which he depicts as an occasion 'one might see at a festival or remote village'. On the other hand, in the following paragraph, the author introduces a hidden story for the lively bright gathering at the bank demonstrating that the illuminated lanterns indicates something more than simply that.
For instance, the author’s record of the gradually creating custom of lantern making, in the paragraph, represents the particularity and expertise that the kids exhibit in creating the lanterns. The design of lanterns is composite and they signify with their complicated cut out shapes and 'little windows' each designed with various hues and different colors, a feeling of imaginativeness showed in the kids' manifestations. The lanterns symbolize more than just naive kids playing around, using the lantern to chase insects, rather it shows kids' energy and dedication. This thorough daily custom that incorporates different apparatuses and systems, various kinds of designs and the individual names of the kids, being 'cut in squared letters' in the lanterns, moreover complements to the thought of multifaceted nature that goes with the lantern making which, once more, the reader doesn't anticipate when previously faced with the visual components of this scene in the second paragraph. Along these lines, the storytellers imparts in the kids a feeling of masterfulness, adaptability and heart filled energy that is the main impetus of something as seemingly insignificant as the creation of a straightforward paper lantern, which could be effectively comprehended as 'kids playing'. Hence, Kawabata utilizes the subjectivity of the storyteller and the poetic presumptions he makes to demonstrate that the children and their activities represent significantly more than what lies superficially, rotating this apparently ordinary or normal occasion into a declaration of something outstanding in the kids.
Through the abstract understanding, by the storyteller, of the scene on the bank, Kawabata, utilizing the images of light, grasshoppers and bell crickets, can call attention to something more than what may be normal about the apparently blameless interchange among Fuijio and Kiyoko, which rises above the occasion itself. The way in which this communication could at first be understood by the reader as a result of innocent children, originates from how Fuijio sweetly ensures that his blessing, of what he supposes is a grasshopper, that is, object of the insect hunt, goes to none other than someone who he is interested, meaning Kiyoko. The author mentions this because he raised the question 'does anyone want a grasshopper?' at least three time, until kiyoko came and asked for the insect. Later on, the narrator creates an image of the insect being transferred from the boy to the girl by saying 'the insect was transferred to between the girls thumb and index finger” this helps the reader actually imagine the scene and maybe feel it too. At this point the experience is seen by the reader to be significant however just a demonstration of how the kids appreciate bell crickets more than grasshoppers, appeared by the redundancy of 'it’s a bell cricket! It’s a bell cricket!', and a sweet show of youth love that puts Fuijio's past activities into setting.
Be that as it may, as the storyteller later clarifies, the light from their lamps recording their names onto one another and the startling turn of the story, when Fuijio, Kiyoko and the kids gleefully discover that Fuijio's blessing was more significant than they had all thought, characterizes an extraordinary moment of an event. This is appeared by the author's perspective on this association just like a 'chance interplay'. evidently this is a minute missed by the kids on the bank and that the desire for them all toward the significance of the bell cricket just as toward the giving and receiving of it, dispossesses their capacity to completely value the lovely and unique fantasy experience between them. To illustrate this the author states “'this chance interplay – if it was chance- neither Fujio nor Kiyoko knew' they are not aware about it in light of the fact that Fuijio's mistake in realizing his bell cricket was a grasshopper and Kiyoko's joy at discovering her grasshopper was a bell cricket, has retained them both with the end goal that they can't value the enchanted scene and their association like the author can. They have been diverted. The possibility that desire is the foundation of the dispossession originates from the symbolic use, by the storyteller, of the grasshopper and the bell cricket; appeared to show various types of desire, to be specific that of something significant and of something less important, similar to the insects in the story.
Kawabata has used all kinds of different writing instruments and tools to write such kind of interesting short story which starts of simple but ends the reader with having deep and interesting thoughts.
