NOTE: If you have a different version of the novel, Chapter 25 is just a few chapters before the end of Part I: Sensei and I (which ends at our Chapter 36). So read all or most of Part I, in that case.
Q1: In some ways, Kokoro is a novel about the traditional
Japanese way of life giving way to the modern, Western world. How does the
narrator and some of the other characters represent this change? Where else
does the novelist show us these changes?
Q2: Several times, the narrator proclaims Sensei as a remarkable man and a philosopher. On one occasion he even exclaims, “I genuinely regretted the way the world ignored this admirable man” (Ch.11). How does the narrator communicate his greatness or uniqueness to the reader? Why is he a “sensei,” which is a term of respect which literally means “one who comes before,” but often connotes a teacher or wise man?
Q3: Sensei tells the narrator in Chapter 7 that “No time is as lonely as youth.” Why might youth (the age many of you are now) be lonelier than adulthood or old age? What do we lack in youth that we gain (or see) when we get older?
Q4: At one point, Sensei tells the narrator that “You had the impulse to find someone of the same sex as the first step toward embracing someone of the opposite sex...But I’m a man, so I can’t really fill your need” (Ch.13). Does the narrator want him to fulfill this need? Is he in love with the older man? Or is it, as Sensei suggests, a way to ‘test’ his attachment to another human being?
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