Japanese Literature Summaries
日本語

Child's Play — Summary and Characters

First love, just before growing up

Author
Higuchi Ichiyō
Published
January 1895
First appeared in
Bungakukai
Form
Novel
Genres
  • Romance
  • Coming of Age
Setting
  • Tokyo
Length
28,676 characters
Reading time
About 57 min
Orthography
Modern script, historical kana

About this work

Higuchi Ichiyō's best-known novella, serialized irregularly in the magazine Bungakukai from 1895 into the following year; when it was reprinted whole in Bungei Kurabu in 1896 it drew warm praise from Mori Ōgai and Kōda Rohan. Set in Daionjimae, the downtown quarter beside the Yoshiwara pleasure district, it follows the faint loves and partings of boys and girls standing at the threshold of the adult world, in a flowing style that mixes the classical and the colloquial. A record of the brief brightness and sadness at the end of childhood, and one of the finest things in modern Japanese literature.

Summary

The neighbourhood of Daionjimae, close to the Yoshiwara. Midori, whose elder sister is a celebrated courtesan of the quarter, is spirited and open-handed and a favourite among the children. The children of the town are divided into the Front Street gang under Shōtarō and the Back Street gang under Chōkichi, the fire chief's son, and on the night of the summer festival at the Senzoku shrine the Back Street gang burst into the stationer's and Midori is humiliated in front of everyone. Meanwhile Nobu, heir to the Ryūgeji temple and destined for the priesthood, is too earnest by nature even to speak to her. On a morning of drizzling rain Nobu breaks the thong of his clog outside Midori's gate, and she holds out a scrap of yūzen silk; but each is too conscious of the other, and they pass without a word. In time Midori comes to the moment when a girl turns into a woman bound for the life of the quarter, and, as though she were another person, loses her brightness. One frosty morning an artificial narcissus had been pushed through the latticed gate. The next day was the day Nobu set out for the seminary.

Characters

Chapter-by-chapter synopsis

The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).

  1. 1. About This Work
  2. 2. Main Characters
  3. 3. Main Supporting Characters
  4. 4. Introduction — Daionjimae and the Children Before the Festival
  5. 5. The Night of the Festival — The Brawl at the Stationer's and the Muddy Sandal
  6. 6. A River Between Them — Midori and Nobu's History
  7. 7. Inside Ryūgeji — The Boy Called Nobu
  8. 8. A Night of Autumn Rain — Watching a Retreating Back
  9. 9. A Drizzling Morning — The Broken Thong and the Crimson-Patterned Yūzen
  10. 10. The Third Rooster Day — The Morning of the Ōshimada
  11. 11. The Ending — The Artificial Narcissus
  12. 12. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing

The opening (original text)

Go round about, and though the Looking-Back Willow at the great gate is a long way off, the racket of the third storeys reflected in the black-dyed ditch can be caught as if in the hand; and from the coming and going of carriages, night and day without cease, one may read off a splendour beyond reckoning. Daionjimae — the name smells of the Buddha, but the people who live there say it is a lively enough quarter.

Child's Play by Higuchi Ichiyō (Aozora Bunko)

The ending (original text)

One frosty morning there was someone who pushed an artificial narcissus in through the latticed gate from outside. Who did it there was no way of knowing; but Midori, moved by she knew not what fondness, put it in a single-stem vase on the staggered shelf and delighted in its lonely, clean form. And she heard, without asking, that the next day was the day Nobu would change the colour of his sleeves at a certain seminary.

Child's Play by Higuchi Ichiyō (Aozora Bunko)

Famous passages

Go round by the road and the willow of last glances at the great gate is a long way off, and yet the lights of the three-story houses reflected in the moat seem near enough to touch, and the ceaseless coming and going of carriages tells of a prosperity beyond reckoning; the name Daionji-mae sounds of the Buddha and nothing more, but those who live there call it, of all places, a lively town.

An opening that paints the pleasure quarter by the great gate of Yoshiwara in a flowing, celebrated cadence that mixes classical and colloquial diction. The bustle and atmosphere of the town rise up to enfold the fleeting days of its boys and girls.

One frosty morning someone had slipped an artificial narcissus in through the lattice gate; there was no way to know whose doing it was, but Midori, for some reason she could not name, felt a wistful tenderness for it, and set it in a single-flower vase on her shelf, admiring its lonely, pure form.

The closing. Shinnyo, who is leaving to become a monk, departs without giving his name, and only the artificial narcissus flower he leaves behind conveys the feelings never spoken aloud.

Read the original

The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.

Aozora Bunko library card

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