47 pages • 1 hour read
Natsume SōsekiKokoro
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1914A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Sensei and I”
Part 1, Chapters 1-12 Summary
Content Warning: This novel and guide contain frequent references to suicide.
The narrator of Kokoro is an unnamed university student who accompanies a friend to Kamakura beach during his vacation. The friend is called away, however, and the narrator is left alone in Kamakura. On the beach, he meets a middle-aged man whom he calls Sensei “rather than reveal his name” (23). Sensei immediately grabs the narrator’s attention because he is with a Westerner. The narrator sees Sensei many times over the ensuing days, but Sensei’s “unapproachable air” means that he must carefully select a moment to introduce himself. When they do meet, they develop a strong friendship, but the narrator notes that Sensei remains somewhat emotionally distant. In the future, the narrator will realize that Sensei was sending him “a warning, to someone who was attempting to grow close to him” (30). When both men return to Tokyo, the narrator meets Sensei in a graveyard. They talk about death, and Sensei says that he is visiting “a friend.”
The narrator visits Sensei frequently. He tries to invite himself to the graveyard with Sensei, but Sensei refuses, explaining that he must visit his friend’s grave alone. He admits that he is lonely. He appreciates the narrator’s visits and suspects that the narrator is similarly lonely. The narrator has “little opportunity” to interact with women. His interactions with Sensei’s wife, Shizu, are memorable; he finds her attractive but feels no real connection to her. Sensei tells the narrator that he and his wife cannot have children due to “divine punishment.” Sensei and Shizu’s marriage is strong but endures occasional arguments, some witnessed by the narrator. The narrator becomes better acquainted with Shizu, who has known Sensei since he was at university. The narrator is surprised that a man as smart as Sensei is “quite unknown” in the wider world. The narrator hints at a tragedy in Sensei’s past but refuses to go into details.
Part 1, Chapters 13-24 Summary
During a walk in a park, the narrator and Sensei discuss love and sin. Sensei comments that the young narrator does not yet understand how the two are related. Despite the narrator’s requests, Sensei does not elaborate further. The narrator believes that his conversations with Sensei are “more beneficial” than attending university. Sensei dismisses the narrator’s fascination with him as temporary; eventually, he believes that the narrator will be embarrassed by his enthusiasm for this older man. The narrator studies Sensei’s marriage for insight into his character. He struggles to penetrate the seemingly cordial bond between Sensei and Shizu, to the point where he invents stories to explain Sensei’s complex beliefs about love, guilt, and sin.
One day, the narrator visits Sensei, but he is out, so the narrator sits and talks with Shizu. She discusses her husband’s growing distaste for the world. Sensei dislikes most people, and she hopes that she is the exception to this rule. Though she does not know exactly what, she believes that there is something that keeps her distanced from her husband. She is comforted by the belief that “no one else could make [Sensei] as happy as [she] can” (57). She has asked Sensei about his growing dislike for the world, and he insists that “there’s nothing to talk about” (59). Reluctantly, she tells the narrator that Sensei’s personality may have changed when his university friend died under mysterious circumstances. The narrator and Shizu develop a friendship.
The narrator’s mother writes to him to warn him that his father’s kidney problems have worsened. The narrator must borrow money from Sensei to pay for the trip home. He spends time with his family, but they gradually begin to take his presence “for granted.” Over time, the narrator realizes that he prefers to spend time with Sensei than with his parents. When he returns to Tokyo, he brings a gift for Sensei from his parents. He talks about his father’s medical condition with Sensei, who speaks somberly about death and “unnatural violence.”
Part 1, Chapters 25-36 Summary
The narrator’s life is soon dominated by the need to finish his university thesis. He completes the work—which is in a field of study proximal to Sensei’s area of expertise—but he laments the lack of warmth or excitement that Sensei shows toward him. He feels “deflated.”
Deciding to do something different, he takes Sensei to a tree nursery outside the city. They walk and talk. During their conversation, Sensei quizzes the narrator about his family, their wealth, and any potential inheritance. He tells a story about how he “used to be wealthy” (78), but his money was taken from him by a wrongful inheritance claim. As Sensei gradually begins to reveal more autobiographical details, the conversation is interrupted by a child chasing a dog.
The narrator tries to quiz Sensei about the topic as they walk home, but Sensei seems less willing to talk. All he says is that he was deceived by his family members. Now, the thought of inheritance is upsetting to him. He explains that “the most moral of men will turn bad when they see money” (82) and traces his dislike of other people back to this betrayal. The narrator disagrees with Sensei’s claim that he does not hide anything. He wants to know more about Sensei’s past, but Sensei is unwilling to discuss this topic. He promises to discuss his life at a “suitable moment,” though the narrator parts ways with Sensei feeling pessimistic about this ever happening.
The narrator’s thesis is not as highly praised as he had hoped. After graduating and receiving his diploma, he is invited to have dinner with Sensei and Shizu. They discuss Sensei’s tendency for tidiness and the importance of clean tablecloths. The narrator confesses that he lacks Sensei’s fastidiousness. Over dinner, they discuss the narrator’s career; he does not know what he wants to do.
After the meal, Sensei asks the narrator about his father’s illness. The conversation leads to a discussion between Shizu and Sensei about which one of them will be the first to die. The conversation about death continues. Sensei’s parents, Shizu explains, both died within a short span of time. Sensei interrupts to stop the “pointless” conversation. He talks instead about his own mortality, assuming that he will die before Shizu because he is older than her. His words upset Shizu, and she begs him to stop the conversation. The narrator leaves.
The next day, the narrator rides the train to his parents’ house and thinks about his family. He has invited his brother to come to their parents’ house because he is worried that his father will die soon. The narrator wavers between optimism and pessimism regarding his father’s health.
Part 1 Analysis
A notable feature of Kokoro is the way in which the author and Sensei guard their names and the names of others. The narrator never mentions his own name and specifically chooses to refer to Sensei by a title. The word sensei is significant; in Japanese, it is a respectful term for a teacher or an elder, someone who is in a position of authority who educates others. Sensei the character so specifically suits this idea that the narrator immediately adopts the title as a name, hiding his mentor’s identity for reasons that will become apparent later in the novel. Similarly, the narrator’s refusal to name himself leaves him as a blank slate. The audience is able to assume the anonymous narrator’s position and form a similar bond with Sensei. In this sense, the adoption of anonymity is a stylistic choice that encourages a greater degree of pathos. The characters are abstracted, turned into functional versions of themselves that represent ideas more than actual people.
Sensei is a teacher, a wise person, and someone with a lived experience that will be gradually understood by both the audience and the narrator. Neither the audience nor the narrator is equipped to learn everything about Sensei right from the beginning. Even in a structural sense, Sensei is playing up to his title, gradually guiding the audience and the narrator through the world to prepare them for his dark secrets.
The narrator approaches the story of his relationship with Sensei from a distance. In a novel filled with echoes and repetitions, he is writing many years after an important experience in his life. His decision to relate this difficult story in this particular manner foreshadows Sensei’s later decision to write an autobiographical letter to the narrator. The narrator is writing from a time many years after the events of the story took place. Though he does not explain why, the narrator infuses his story with perspective and reflections that hint that he has needed the intervening years to fully understand what transpired between himself and Sensei. Given how often Sensei talks about the narrator’s need to come to terms with the reality of the world, in a way that university and youth cannot provide, the temporal removal from the events allows the narrator to demonstrate how he has internalized the lessons taught to him by Sensei. In this way, the narrator uses his mode of narration to illustrate the importance of Sensei’s lessons and his talents as a teacher.
The depiction of the narrator’s growing relationship with Shizu hints at the way gender norms operate during the Meiji Restoration. By his own admission, the narrator is unfamiliar with women and inexperienced with being in their company. Gradually, the awkwardness and tension between Shizu and the narrator dissipate, and they are able to have frank and honest conversations about Sensei and his dark past. These less-formal interactions provide a contrast for the interactions between men and women depicted later in the novel, suggesting a gradual reform in Japanese society that is less inhibitive for women.
At the same time, however, many patriarchal elements of the society linger. Shizu makes references to Sensei’s past during dinner conversations with the narrator, but Sensei immediately shuts her down. She is forbidden from discussing certain topics, forced to defer to her husband in a way that extends beyond polite etiquette. Japanese society remains patriarchal in nature, but hints of progressive social change and a growing acceptance of women’s agency are demonstrated subtly through the contrast between the different decades depicted in the novel.
