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
Once, when Empress Teishi was required to leave the palace during the Great Purification, she moved into the Aitadokoro, since the Office of the Empress’s Household was in a forbidden direction. Her household spent a cramped and anxious night there. This old building was home to biting centipedes which dropped from the ceiling, as well as huge wasps’ nests.
Sei’s thoughts about anxiety transition into a specific memory of an uncomfortable stay in an unfamiliar palace, complete with menacing insects. In this way, she is able to perceive a specific emotion in a variety of different situations—even those she has not directly experienced herself.
Themes
One day, Consultant Captain Tadanobu came for a visit, along with Captain Nobukata and Junior Counsellor Michikata. Sei is impressed by Tadanobu’s obscure reference to a poem he had chanted months earlier, since Sei thinks that men often don’t recall such things as readily as women do. On that occasion, Tadanobu made a gaffe with his recitation, so Sei has been watching for an opportunity to teasingly prompt him ever since—giving him a chance to rectify his mistake. She adds, “I do enjoy people who remember things that have happened.”
Sei continues to enjoy teasing Tadanobu on the basis of their shared adeptness with poetry. She also appreciates him because, like her, he enjoys specific whimsical memories.
Themes
After Tadanobu is promoted, Sei misses him. Nobukata tries to convince her that he’s just as good at reciting poetry, and when Sei longingly remembers Tadanobu’s elegant recitation of “He had not yet reached the time of his thirties,” Nobukata tries to recite it just as well. He is bitter when Sei doesn’t agree that he’s better. He ends up going to Tadanobu’s office and asking the latter to coach him on this poem. He later recites it outside Sei’s apartment and is delighted when she isn’t sure which man is speaking.
The poem named was a Chinese poem by Minamoto Fusaakira. The poem laments one’s advancing age by comparing the speaker with younger men who are more accomplished. Nobukata longs for the status that’s granted by skill at poetry recitation.
Themes
On another occasion, everyone has been teasing Captain Nobukata about courting a lady named Sakyo. Sakyo is the daughter of a lady nicknamed “Lie-down.” When Nobukata remarks that he wishes he had an office to use during night-watch duty, Sei replies, “People do like to have somewhere they can relax and lie down,” as Nobukata apparently does often. Nobukata is furious at Sei for accepting the rumors about him and Sakyo at face value. Their friendship breaks down after this.
Sakyo’s mother apparently had this nickname because she was a shrine priestess who always prostrated herself while speaking. Sei’s comment is a play on this nickname and suggests that Nobukata and Sakyo have a sexual relationship. Sei’s sharp sense of humor sometimes alienates her from others, as seen here by Nobukata’s angry reaction and the dissolution of their friendship.
Themes
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Some things which are “near yet far” include relationships between estranged siblings, “the winding path up to Kurama Temple,” and anticipating the first day of the new year on the last day of the old. Things that are “far yet near” include Paradise and relationships between men and women.
“Near yet far” refers to things which are logically close to one another, yet farther apart then one would first imagine. Kurama Temple is located not very far up a mountain, yet it’s accessible only by a zigzagging trail. By likening things that are metaphorically far apart (like certain relationships) to things that are literally far apart (like the temple), Sei is able to convey the emotional commonalities among otherwise very different experiences.
Themes
