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
On one occasion, Empress Teishi is inadvertently lit by a lamp while sitting near open shutters, listening to a musical performance; she lifts her biwa to shield herself from view. The sight of her lovely gowns, and the contrast between her white forehead and the black instrument, are thrilling to Sei. Sei makes a reference to a poem about a “maiden who ‘half hides her face.’”
A biwa is a stringed instrument similar to a lute. Sei’s reference is to a poem called “The Song of the Pipa” by Bo Juyi, which mentions a girl who shields her face with a biwa. From this, it’s clear that Sei’s writings aren’t merely limited to her own observations and experiences—she is also engaging with Japan’s poetic tradition.
Themes
Sei names “infuriating things,” such as discovering, after a hasty sewing job, that one has failed to knot the thread to start with. This reminds her of an occasion in the Empress’s residence, when the ladies were tasked with an urgent sewing job. A certain nurse rushes through her work and realizes she’s stitched a sleeve the wrong way around, then petulantly makes the other ladies fix it for her. It’s also infuriating when groundsmen suddenly start uprooting a plant one has been admiring.
Tasks such as minor sewing jobs would have been part of the gentlewomen’s service to their lady (on the eve of a festival, for instance, when costume changes were a big event). This responsibility, given the time constraint, would provide plenty of opportunity for frustration and argument among the ladies—the life of a courtier, it seems, was not always glamorous.
Themes
It’s frustrating and embarrassing to overhear a confidential conversation one is powerless to ignore, or when one’s lover gets drunk and starts spouting secrets. It’s also frustrating when someone starts gushing about a horrible child, or when an uneducated person drops famous names, or having to listen to someone recite a bad poem they’ve written.
Sei finds particular embarrassment in situations where she’s forced to hear something awkward or unseemly. It seems that, given Sei’s deep appreciation for beauty and poetry, anything that stands out against her aesthetic sensibility is a source of annoyance or even distress.
Themes
It’s “startling and disconcerting” to snap a hair comb, or see an overturned ox cart, or wait up all night for someone who never comes. Spilling something is also startling and disconcerting. It’s “regrettable” when it rains instead of snows during certain festivals, or a festival is disrupted by an imperial abstinence, or when a group of ladies drape their beautiful sleeves out the carriage window during an outing, but then doesn’t meet anyone who can admire them.
An imperial abstinence would have been a period of court-wide seclusion because of a risk of exposure to evil spirits, according to Yin-Yang divination. A significant aspect of court ladies’ recreation involves outings which give them the chance to be seen and admired in public.
Themes
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One day, Sei suggests an expedition to hear the hototogisu. A group of ladies, without the Empress, duly sets out into the country by carriage. They do hear the bird, and they also stop for a country meal at the home of a lord. On the way home, instead of working on poems, they decorate the carriage with sprays of white blossoms. When they get back, Empress Teishi is disappointed with them for being too distracted to have composed their hototogisu poems in advance.
The hototogisu bird was especially loved for its springtime call. Because the bird was associated with the poetic tradition, people would go on outings to hear the bird for the express purpose of composing their own poems on the subject.
Themes
Two days later, Empress Teishi teases Sei about her hototogisu poem, and Sei becomes defensive. She complains that when Her Majesty tells her to write a poem, her “only impulse is to flee,” since she comes from a long line of accomplished poets. The Empress promises to stop pressuring Sei about this, exempting her from a poetry contest later that night.
As the daughter and granddaughter of poets, Sei is self-conscious about her own compositions. As seen elsewhere in the book, she particularly hates being forced to compose poetry on the spot, which the Empress seems to sympathize with here.
Themes
