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Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Gion and Pontocho:
Sayuri often serves as an unreliable narrator throughout the novel, as her narration is colored by small personal and cultural biases. In particular, she is somewhat biased towards the traditional geisha practices employed in Gion, occasionally regarding other geisha traditions, such as those from Pontocho or Tokyo, as inferior or "modern." The unreliability of her narration is evidenced in a passage where she explains the history of various schools of classical geisha dance:
The Inoue School of dance, practiced by the geisha of Gion, derives from Noh theater. Because Noh is a very ancient art that has always been patronized by the Imperial court, dancers in Gion consider their art superior to the school of dance practiced in the Pontocho district across the river, which derives from Kabuki. Now, I’m a great admirer of Kabuki [...] But Kabuki is a relatively young art form [...] There is simply no comparing the dance in Pontocho to the Inoue School of Gion.
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Chapter 35
Explanation and Analysis—Sayuri's Son:
In the final chapter of the novel, Sayuri suggests, in a highly veiled manner, that she bore the Chairman an "illegitimate son," or a son born outside of his legal marriage to his wife. She also reveals that the birth of this son became a thorny problem for the Chairman: when he attempted to arrange a marriage between his daughter and a man named Minoru Nishioka, Nishioka pulled out of the marriage due to rumors that the Chairman's illegitimate son might inherit his company. This surprising admission highlights the unreliability of Sayuri's narration.
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