The Wild Geese — Summary and Characters
A kept woman and a student on Muenzaka
- Author
- Mori Ōgai
- Published
- September 1911
- First appeared in
- Subaru
- Form
- Novel
- Genres
- Romance
- Psychological
- Setting
- Tokyo
- Length
- 73,892 characters
- Reading time
- About 2 hr 28 min
- Orthography
- Modern script and kana
About this work
A novel serialized irregularly in the magazine Subaru from September 1911 to May 1913. Set in Tokyo in 1880, it tells of Otama, who has become the kept woman of the moneylender Suezō, and the faint love she comes to feel for Okada, a medical student who passes on his walks along Muenzaka. Prevented by accident from ever coming together, the two are drawn quietly, in the recollection of the narrator, an old friend of Okada's. Famous for the neatness with which a dish of boiled fish and a single wild goose divide two fates, and for its rendering of Meiji Tokyo. A central work of Ōgai's middle period.
Summary
In the thirteenth year of Meiji, in the room next to the narrator's at the Kamijō, a lodging house across from the Iron Gate of Tokyo University, lived Okada, a handsome medical student liked by everyone. On his walks Okada came to see the face of a woman, O-Tama, at the window of a kept woman's house on Muenzaka, and before long the two were exchanging bows. O-Tama had become the mistress of Suezō, believing him an honest tradesman, out of a single wish to make life easier for her poor father, who sold candy figures; and when she learned that he was in fact a moneylender she fell into despair, and came to make a secret support of the student who passed beneath her window. One night, when Suezō is away, O-Tama makes up her mind to speak to Okada at last. But that day boiled blue fish, which Okada dislikes, is served at supper at the Kamijō, and so the narrator takes him out for a walk. By the Shinobazu pond, urged on by his friend, Okada throws a stone and by chance kills a wild goose. Because he has company with him, O-Tama's chance to speak is lost for ever. The next day Okada leaves for the West, and he and O-Tama never see each other again.
Characters
- O-Tama A girl who became a moneylender's mistress to make life easier for her father, and who gives her heart to the Okada she sees through her window
- Okada A handsome medical student who passes along Muenzaka on his walks, and whose journey abroad is settled on the night he kills the goose
- Suezō The moneylender who keeps O-Tama. He began as a servant at the university
- I A student in the room next to Okada's. The narrator
- O-Tama's father An old man who sells candy figures, devoted to his daughter
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. Major Supporting Characters
- 4. Opening — The Woman at the Window on Muenzaka
- 5. The Candy-Seller's Daughter — How O-Tama Became a Mistress
- 6. The Moneylender's Mistress — A Word from the Fishmonger
- 7. The House at Ikenohata — What the Parasol Revealed
- 8. Killing the Snake — The Caged Bird and Its Rescuer
- 9. The One Chance — Mackerel Stewed in Miso
- 10. The Ending — The Wild Goose on Shinobazu Pond
- 11. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing
The opening (original text)
It is an old story. I happen to remember that it took place in the thirteenth year of Meiji. The reason I remember the year so exactly is that at the time I was living in a lodging house called the Kamijō, directly opposite the Iron Gate of Tokyo University, in the room next to the hero of this story, with only a wall between us.
The Wild Geese by Mori Ōgai (Aozora Bunko)
The ending (original text)
Just as a great affair may come of a single nail, because boiled blue fish was set on the supper table at the Kamijō, Okada and O-Tama never saw each other again. Nor is that all. But what lies beyond that is outside the bounds of the story called The Wild Goose. Now that I have finished writing this story, I count on my fingers and find that thirty-five years have gone by since that time.
The Wild Geese by Mori Ōgai (Aozora Bunko)
Famous passages
It is an old story. I happen to remember that it took place in the thirteenth year of Meiji.
An opening that draws the story out as if reeling in a distant memory. It tells of a love between Otama, the mistress of a moneylender, and the student Okada, that ends without ever quite meeting.
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
- The Dancing Girl January 1890
- The Abe Family January 1913
- Sanshō the Steward January 1915