Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Pillow Book, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Court Life vs. Common Life
Poetry and Social Relationships
Aesthetic Beauty, Delight, and Cultural Tradition
Romance and Official Duty
Summary
Analysis
One day Sei receives a bare plum branch with the note, “What do you make of this?” She writes back, “The flowers have already scattered.” Soon she hears a group of senior courtiers chanting the poem from which her reply derives. Empress Teishi praises Sei’s answer.
Sei’s line is from the Japanese version of a Chinese poem. The courtiers’ question and subsequent approval show that they expected nothing less from Sei. The fact that she responded in Japanese (avoiding putting her Chinese knowledge on display) is probably also significant, since Chinese was considered a masculine language and Sei is aware of the importance of appearing ladylike.
Themes
During a windy, snowy day, Sei receives a letter from Consultant Kinto: “There is about this day / some tiny touch of spring.” Sei is mortified to learn that Kinto, himself a great poet, is gathered with other accomplished poets, and Empress Teishi is unavailable to help. Sei knows that taking too long makes “a bad poem even worse,” so at least she sends a trembling reply, likening the snow to “tumbling petals.” Later, to her relief, she hears that one of the courtiers has suggested that she ought to be promoted to “High Gentlewoman” for this response.
Fujiwara Kinto was considered one of the day’s finest poets, thus Sei’s heightened anxiety over this sudden request. Part of the success of a poem involved not just its beauty, but the quickness with which it was produced.
Themes
Sei discusses Masahiro, “a great laughing-stock.” Sei pities his parents and the attendants in his service. He is from a household where beautiful clothes are worn, and people always sigh that such clothes belong on somebody besides Masahiro. He has a habit of garbling phrases in his attempts to sound educated, and once he stepped on a sticky oilcloth and caused a standing lamp to topple. Once he was also caught sneakily eating some beans before higher-ranking chamberlains were served, causing everyone to laugh at him.
Masahiro is a chamberlain with a tendency to make a fool of himself. The fact that he becomes a laughing-stock while wearing beautiful clothes is a particular shame, because he behaves in a way that’s considered unworthy of his rank—a big deal in the Heian court.
Themes
Sei lists some things that are “distressing to see,” such as a woman greeting a special visitor with a child slung on her back, or a Buddhist priest conducting a Yin-Yang purification ceremony, or a “slovenly” woman lounging around with a “scrawny” man. She lists the names of some barrier gates, forests, and plains.
Sei seems to find the appearance of certain people—like the woman carrying a child—as distressingly common and unfitting to a special occasion. Similarly, the blend of Buddhism and Yin-Yang is an awkward mixing in her eyes.
Themes
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Sei then lists some things “that lose by being painted” (cherry blossom, or splendidly-described characters in tales), those that gain (pine trees, mountain villages), and “moving things.” Some of these include a child dressed in mourning for a parent, or a young man preparing to undergo the Mitake austerities. Others include dew in the garden in late autumn, or the wind rustling the bamboo when one first wakes up, or a couple in love who are prevented from being together.
For some beautiful things, being painted is a detraction from reality or imagination, while others gain in elegance. The Mitake austerities were religious devotions practiced under the guidance of mountain ascetics.
Themes
