Botchan — Summary and Characters
A hot-headed teacher in the provinces
- Author
- Natsume Sōseki
- Published
- April 1906
- First appeared in
- Hototogisu
- Form
- Novel
- Genres
- Satire
- Coming of Age
- Setting
- Tokyo
- Ehime
- Length
- 88,503 characters
- Reading time
- About 2 hr 57 min
- Orthography
- Modern script and kana
About this work
A novella from Sōseki's early period, published in the magazine Hototogisu in April 1906. A blunt, hot-headed young man from Tokyo takes a post teaching mathematics at a middle school in Shikoku and finds himself squaring off against his scheming colleagues, in a story carried by sharp talk and headlong action. Its clear-cut, good-against-bad plotting and humorous voice have kept it among the most popular of all Sōseki's works since the day it appeared.
Summary
Botchan, reckless since childhood and looked at askance by his family, was doted on by one person only: Kiyo, the old maidservant, who looked forward to great things for him. Graduating from a physics academy, he takes a post teaching mathematics at a middle school in Shikoku. Unable to settle to country ways, he is at once plagued by the pupils' pranks, and drawn as well into the schemes of crafty colleagues — Redshirt, the head teacher, and his hanger-on, the Clown. Falling in with the blunt and upright Porcupine, Botchan grows angrier and angrier at Redshirt's underhanded conduct, until at last the two of them lie in wait for Redshirt and the Clown and give them a thrashing; then he resigns his post and goes back to Tokyo. He takes work as a technician on the city tramway and begins living with Kiyo again — but she dies soon afterwards of pneumonia, and is buried at Botchan's family temple.
Characters
- Botchan The narrator, reckless and straightforward. He goes from Tokyo to a middle school in Shikoku to teach mathematics
- Kiyo The old maidservant of Botchan's family, who dotes on him and never stops believing in his future
- Porcupine (Hotta) A fellow mathematics teacher. Blunt and upright, he and Botchan take to each other at once
- Redshirt The crafty head teacher, who affects literary tastes and works behind the scenes for his own advantage
- The Clown (Yoshikawa) The drawing master, who fawns on Redshirt
Chapter-by-chapter synopsis
The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).
- 1. About This Work
- 2. Main Characters
- 3. Main Supporting Characters
- 4. A Reckless Streak Inherited — Kiyo, My Ally
- 5. Taking Up the Post — A School of Nicknames
- 6. The Night on Duty — Grasshoppers and War Cries
- 7. Fishing and a Faculty Meeting — Redshirt's Riddle
- 8. Old Mother Hagino — The Truth About Madonna
- 9. Squash's Demotion and the Farewell Party
- 10. The Victory Celebration Brawl and the Newspaper
- 11. Heaven's Punishment — And Back to Tokyo
- 12. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing
The opening (original text)
Reckless by inheritance, I have been getting the worst of it ever since I was a child. While I was in elementary school I jumped from the second storey of the school building and could not stand for a week. Someone may ask why I did anything so foolish. There was no great reason. I was putting my head out of a window of the newly built second storey when a classmate, joking, called out that for all my swagger I could never jump down from there — coward, coward. That was why.
Botchan by Natsume Sōseki (Aozora Bunko)
The ending (original text)
I have forgotten to speak of Kiyo. — When I reached Tokyo I did not even go to my lodgings but burst in with my bag still in my hand, calling, "Kiyo, I'm back!" — and she let the tears fall in great drops and said, "Oh, Botchan, how good of you to come home so soon." I was so glad myself that I told her I would not go to the country again, that I would keep house in Tokyo with Kiyo. Afterwards, through someone's good offices, I became a technician on the city tramway. The salary is twenty-five yen and the rent six. Kiyo seemed perfectly content though the house had no proper entrance hall; but the pity of it is that this February she caught pneumonia and died. The day before she died she called me and said, "Botchan, I beg of you — when Kiyo dies, bury her in your temple. I shall be waiting in the grave and looking forward to your coming." And so Kiyo's grave is at the Yōgenji in Kobinata.
Botchan by Natsume Sōseki (Aozora Bunko)
Famous passages
Ever since I was a child, I have been getting myself into trouble through the reckless streak I inherited from my parents.
One of the most famous opening lines in Japan, in which the narrator introduces himself through his inherited recklessness. In a single breath, the Edokko-spirited protagonist springs to life.
And that is why Kiyo's grave is at Yōgenji Temple in Kobinata.
The final line. A narrative voice that has pushed through in true Edokko fashion closes quietly, leaving behind only his affection for Kiyo, the old family maid.
Read the original
The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.
More by this author
- I Am a Cat January 1905
- Kusamakura September 1906
- Gubijinsō June 1907
- Sanshirō September 1908
- And Then June 1909
- The Gate March 1910
Related works
- The Grave of the Wild Chrysanthemum January 1906
- Child's Play January 1895
- Matasaburō of the Wind 1934