Paragraph 4 Flashcards
Not only does Kyoka use ‘the Surgery Room’ to demonstrate sacrifice, but he also portrays sacrifice in another short story ‘Osen and Sokichi’. In this story, Sokichi discovers that he has found his former lover and carer Osen at a train station, having previously labelled her as a “mad woman”, causing him to reminisce about their time together. Kyoka uses Osen’s sacrifice, in which she was arrested to save him, to once again blur the lines of strength and weakness, and [IDEA ABOUT QUESTION].
During her arrest, Osen shouts “So-chan. I’ll give you my spirit”, contrasting the other sacrifices mentioned, which were previously portrayed through the writer having a character sacrifice their life, rather than their “spirit”. During this sacrifice, Kyoka once again contrasts red and white through the “red” of Osen’s lips and the “bluish-white” crane that she throws to him as she is being arrested.
By contrasting these colours once again, Kyoka creates a sense that strength and weakness isn’t simply ambiguous in some situations, but in all of them, not only portraying Osen’s strength in her sacrifice, but also her apparent weakness in becoming a “madwoman” following her sacrifice.
Similarly to the downfall of Othello as he loses his reasoning and logic, this labelling of Osen with the epithet “madwoman” has connotations of judgement and pity, ideas that tend to surround weakness, reinforcing the appearance of weakness in what may have seemed to be a bold action. [LINK TO QUESTION]
