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
The ladies’ apartments in the Empress’s quarters are a wonderful place. Ladies can chat with their male visitors over a standing curtain that’s been set up. It’s also a pleasant place to watch musicians and dancers passing through the gardens on their way to a festival performance.
For Sei, the formal separation between men and women and the seclusion of the ladies’ quarters are facts of life and not something to which she objects.
Themes
One morning at dawn, some of the ladies join the Empress in a moonlit walk through the garden. Then they hear some courtiers chanting a Chinese poem nearby, so they rush back inside and talk with the men from inside. Impressed that the ladies had been moon-viewing, some of the courtiers compose poems on the spot.
Encountering the male courtiers in the open would be considered indelicate, hence the ladies escaping back into the house. But this doesn’t stop the men from enjoying some poetic composition on the spot, again reflecting the importance of poetry in navigating social relationships and expressing oneself among courtiers.
Themes
On the day after the Litany of Buddha Names, screens decorated with paintings of hell are taken to the Empress’s quarters for a viewing. Sei is so horrified by the screens that she can’t look, so she hides in a nearby room. It’s raining that day, so the Empress brings some musicians to perform. When Sei eventually comes out of hiding, everyone teases her that she’s afraid of hellfire, yet she can’t resist such delights as music.
The others tease Sei that even though she appears to be quite pious in other respects, she’s worldly overall, always drawn to whatever delights are on offer. As per Japan’s okashi tradition, Sei is always attuned to aesthetic beauty and the pure enjoyment it offers.
Themes
At one point, Secretary Captain Tadanobu hears “certain baseless and ridiculous rumours” that are being spread about Sei, and he begins speaking ill of her. Sei laughs it off, figuring he will learn the truth eventually. Some weeks later, having ignored her all this time, Tadanobu decides to make amends and sends a letter to Sei, urging a reply. Sei finds that he has written a line from Bo Juyi, “You are there in the flowering capital, beneath the Council Chamber’s brocade curtains,” and has asked her to complete the poem.
Fujiwara Tadanobu was a senior courtier, skilled at poetry, with whom Sei was close. He quotes a poem by Chinese poet Bo Juyi (772–846 C.E.) who was quite popular in Japan at this time. The poem is titled “Alone at Night in a Grass-thatched Hut beneath Lu Shan Mountain.” His gesture—asking Sei to complete the poem—suggests that he understands her well. It seems that poetry is a fundamental part of how these two friends communicate and engage in intellectual banter.
Themes
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Sei isn’t sure what to do, knowing it would look bad if she showed off the fact that she knows the next line in Chinese, but the messenger is nagging her. So she quickly scrawls in Japanese, “Who will come visiting this grass-thatched hut?” She gets no response that night.
Sei’s dilemma is that, in her context, it’s considered “unladylike” to exhibit knowledge of Chinese, which is considered to be a masculine language. Accordingly, she turns the second line, which she knows (“while I sit […] in my grass-thatched hut”), into the last two lines of a new poem in Japanese.
Themes
The next morning, Sei hears a captain crying, “Is ‘Grass-thatched Hut’ present?” As he tells her what happened last night, he looks “shamefaced.” He explains that many people were gathered in Tadanobu’s room after they got Sei’s message. They declared her a “clever rogue” and spent the night trying to add the first three lines to the poem, but they finally had to give up. Now Sei’s nickname is “Grass-thatched Hut.”
Because Sei sent the concluding lines of a new poem, Tadanobu would be understood that it was his job to supply the beginning—a task that stumps him but nevertheless wins Sei new respect. This also shows Sei’s adeptness at navigating the social life at court.
Themes
Just as Sei is reflecting on her “dreadful” new nickname, Norimitsu arrives. He breathlessly repeats the whole story, grateful that Sei gave such a clever response to Tadanobu, since if she’d failed, it would have reflected poorly on him as “elder brother.” He admits that he has no appreciation for poetry himself, but that it’s still great news for him. Sei finds out that even the Emperor is impressed with Sei’s response, and her relationship with Tadanobu is on good terms again.
Tachibana Norimitsu is Assistant to Palace Repairs and is believed to have been Sei’s husband before she arrived at court, though they no longer have a romantic relationship. Norimitsu’s lack of poetic ability wouldn’t have endeared him to Sei. In any case, he still feels entitled to bask in her reputation.
Themes
