Marriage

Marriage is brought up in the first chapter of the book many times in the first chapter. It is something that keeps coming up. The first time that it was brought up. It was on page 17 where it talks about Setsuko. Setsuko is the daughter of the artist, Masuji Ono. Masuji tells the reader about the worry that he and his wife have for his daughter. The worry is that she wouldn't make a good wife. In this culture we can see that Marriage is a big thing/deal. It is something a woman waits for and looks forward to. Masuji Ono noticed his daughter's beauty while she visited him. She noticed that was getting better looking. He states "Setsuko is becoming better looking as she gets older." With this sentence we see that beauty is something that leads up to marriage. The beauty of the woman attracts and determines marriage. He then states, " In her youth, her mother and I had worried that she was too plain to make a good marriage." By Setsuko not having beauty, she lacks other characteristics and gets held back by not having that beauty. Therefore her marriage won’t be as good as others, her parents theorized.  This insecurity has made this girl turn out “so shy” and “retiring”.  Setsuko is now in her thirties and married but is finally “flowering” according to her mother.
Her sister, Noriko has been engaged and has almost gotten married. Noriko is described as “have grown up so headstrong”. Which in a way can be stated as prepared for marriage. Marriage has excited Noriko and disappointed her. Noriko’s engagement was called off unexpectedly. Which leads to Setsuko to wonder and question a lot of things. Marriage is one thing that they want and can’t wait for. But after it wounded Noriko the way it did, Setsuko wonders what other things aren’t loyal. She questions her father and implies that he knows something when he doesn’t. He tells the reader, “that was not the first time Setsuko had questioned me in such a way concerning last year”. Setsuko has questioned her father before implying he knows something about marriage and engagements. She questions about marriage. This incident has left Setsuko questioning anything that comes her way. I sense fear in the way the author has her ramble about the incident that happened to Noriko. The way she makes up excuses for the family that called off the engagement.

This topic is brought up again on page 52, Noriko states about how she has encountered Jiro Miyake. She expresses her feelings about the withdrawal. She states that she thinks she wasn’t pretty enough and that maybe when she was engaged; the family had already wanted to withdraw. This event has scarred Noriko, in the fear of not getting married, which seems to be very important in this culture. It has made a woman who was once so “headstrong” be insecure of her beauty and value. Noriko feels that she wasn’t pretty enough or that she didn’t meet the requirements that Jiro Miyake and his family had for a wife. Set suko has gone all the way and married. Both started the same but went different paths. Both paths were teh same but different endings occurred. They were both raised the same way but now one is married and the other stuck at home.

Marriage is a serious, serious business. In this book it shows the common interest of daughters and female characters wanting to get married. A woman dreams of the day that she is being taken by her husband and she knows that she is given the opportunity to do her job on Earth which in this culture is believed to give birth, to reproduce. Time has changed this by making woman independent and successful without the need of the male. Women are now educated and can do anything. The female’s job is not to reproduce but to help this world find a way to extend the time of existence for humans.


Work Cited
Ishiguro,Kazuo. An Artist of the Floating World. New York: Vintage Books, 1986. Print