Natsume Soseki wrote an amusing novel, at first
sight it appears to be a frivolous story based on his personal
experience. Truly it is, yet, not that frivolous and unbiased as one
may think. The literary genre portrayed in the novel is morality
discourse mingled with humor and grotesque. Soseki's experience as a
teacher was described in the novel, it was his loneliness, homesick
feelings, he was missing Tokyo, his surroundings. On the other hand
his life in Matsuyama, on the island of Shikoku was filled with
overwhelming longing. The small, picturesque island is an idyllic
place, Botchan perceives it as backward and barbaric, uncivilized.
The basic, archaic Japanese values are opposite to new, modern,
westernized intellectualism, which are described with a hind of
sarcasm and irony, for that reason the character of the novel is a
bit tart. The position of the match teacher is not an easy task,
shortly after his arrival he knows that he will be in the center of
spinning troubles. Unaware, he is involved in various plots he tries
to unravel. His haunt is in the person of English teacher –
Redshirt and Porcupine – a man with an incredible unbroken code of
a samurai, brave and strong. The nicknames reflects their humane
nature, its dark, impenetrable core. This light reading by no means
is excellent, the mischievous intrigue and lots of comparisons to
“Huckerberry Finn” written by Mark Twain makes this novel so
exquisite. The plot summary is basic, simple to consume.
Botchan has to face with nasty pupils,
especially one troublemaker who doesn't want to attend to his
classes. Botchan's narration is crude and arrogant, yet, honest,
filled with feelings. After the death of troublemaker's mother, the
kid realized how difficult is to grow up, to be mature.
The island is not all he used to think, in
contrary, everything he sees is wrong and obscure. His perception and description of people, town, habits, customs of islanders is nothing
but mocking. Small town has its rules, and a new teacher shortly
acknowledges that what he does outside the classroom will not be
unseen, but, to his disadvantage, easily used against him. Namely,
being a teacher doesn't allow one to do what one wants to … there
are always consequences.
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