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Takeichi
Yoshiko is 17 years old when she meets Yozo. She works across the street from the bar he frequents in Kyobashi, and she often tells him that he needs to drink less. One night, he drunkenly suggests that they should get married, mainly because he has been thinking about how she’s a virgin and how he’d like to sleep with her. She agrees to marry him if he stops drinking. Although Yozo accepts this condition, he gets drunk the very next day. However, Yoshiko is too trusting to believe that Yozo would break his promise, so they have sex and then get married. Yozo later worries that Yoshiko is too trusting, ultimately associating her tendency to unquestioningly trust others with the fact that she ends up getting raped—something that happens while Yozo himself watches and does nothing. Yozo falls into an even deeper depression after Yoshiko’s rape, eventually trying once again to die by suicide. Yoshiko tragically blames herself for this, thinking that Yozo wants to die because he feels guilty for not protecting her.
Yoshiko Quotes in No Longer Human
The No Longer Human quotes below are all either spoken by Yoshiko or refer to Yoshiko . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Third Notebook: Part Two Quotes
Horiki sat in front of me and said, with a gentle smile, the like of which I had never before seen on his face, “I hear you’ve coughed blood.” I felt so grateful, so happy for that gentle smile that I averted my face and wept. I was completely shattered and smothered by that one gentle smile.
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This was a really rare event. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that it was the one and only time in my life that I refused something offered to me. My unhappiness was the unhappiness of a person who could not say no. I had been intimidated by the fear that if I declined something offered me, a yawning crevice would open between the other person’s heart and myself which could never be mended through all eternity.
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Yoshiko Character Timeline in No Longer Human
The timeline below shows where the character Yoshiko appears in No Longer Human. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Third Notebook: Part One
...point, though, a young woman tries to get him to stop drinking. Her name is Yoshiko, and she’s 17. She works in a tobacco store across the street from the bar.
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When Yoshiko tells Yozo to stop drinking, he doesn’t understand why he should do such a thing....
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The next day, Yozo gets drunk. He tries to tell Yoshiko that their arrangement has to be called off, since he’s drunk, but she doesn’t believe...
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The Third Notebook: Part Two
Yozo and Yoshiko move into an apartment together, and Yozo stops drinking. He enjoys spending time with his...
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One night, Horiki comes over and asks to borrow some money. Yozo sends Yoshiko to the pawnshop to pawn some of her clothes, and then he tells her to...
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...him to come take a look. Yozo follows him and then sees a man raping Yoshiko in an adjacent room. Yozo is deeply troubled by this, but he doesn’t do anything...
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Yozo tells Yoshiko not to talk about getting raped. Before he left, Horiki told Yozo to “forgive” her,...
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...the year. Addressing the woman from the bar, Yozo asks to be taken away from Yoshiko. Then, without understanding what he means, he says that he’s going to a place where...
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In the aftermath of Yozo’s incident with the sleeping pills, Yoshiko thinks he tried to kill himself because he blames himself for her rape. Flatfish, for...
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...kill himself, though, Horiki and Flatfish show up and take him to a psychiatric ward. Yoshiko comes with them, and just before leaving Yozo at the ward, she tries to slip...
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