He visits Sensei’s house, only to be told that he is at a nearby graveyard. After leaving the beach resort and returning to Tokyo, the narrator decides to visit his new friend. The wise, emotionally distant Sensei has an academic air to him, which intrigues the young student narrator. He meets Sensei while on vacation and begins to develop a deep friendship with the man, even though he cannot quite define Sensei’s character. He chooses to refer to his new friend by the title Sensei to preserve his anonymity. In Part 1, the unnamed narrator of Kokoro describes his first encounter with an older man. You should go there if you like Kokoro.This guide uses an eBook version of the 2010 Penguin Books edition, translated into English by Meredith McKinney.Ĭontent Warning: This novel and guide contain frequent references to suicide. The scene of Kokoro is laid in Zaimokuza beach and Yuigahama beach of Kamakura city. Kokoro is an excellent novel though it is short.

Soseki descibed individualism which consists individual liberty and rights has some problem through Sensei and K. K's strong ego collapsed when the woman he like is stolen, and he kills himself because of feeling loneliness. Sensei carries around worries on my own, and cannot open his heart because of his strong self‐consciousness. People who has strong self‐consciousness and ego cannot believe and accept others, they also cannot open their mind to others. Myself consists self‐consciousness and ego.

Myself is the most imporant thing for modern people in the present era. On the other hand, some people think Soseki discribed modern people and loneliness. Sensei feels his spirit of Meiji era fade out, and kills himself. In capitalism, things which many people want are very valuable. Sensei falls into temptaion based on capitalism. However, Sensei betrays his friend K and steals the woman K likes. That is a difficult thing to forgive for Sensei because he experienced betrayal and graft by his uncle. Western thinking place importance on individual liberty, rights and benefit. Spirit of Meiji era fade into the Western thnking and feeling in Taisho era after Meiji era. People who have them should place importance on loyalty and norms of society. It is said that spirit of Meiji era is feudal morality or Confucian ethics. However, Sensei says the reason of suicide is losing spirit of Meiji era. Many people also think Sensei kills himself in compensation for K's death after reading Kokoro. The reason of Sensei's suicide tends to be expiation or atonement in class. Many Japanese literature teachers teach a struggle between friendship and egoism by extracting a passage from it in class. Most Japanese have read Kokoro because it appears in school text books.

Kokoro soseki