Looking back at her life as a prostitute to two young men in need of guidance, a now aged woman tells her life story in relation to love and what she learned throughout. Each section of the story features a new man, and her different approaches toward love as she grows older. Her first love affair was with the samurai. “For four or five days-I couldn’t tell whether I was asleep or awake”, this was the purest she believed is ever been; eluding to herself as “bud of a lotus” and “purity of water”. The story progresses where she is now was a teacher and grew to love a man who was one of her customers. She “made love with the man day and night. When he lost his desire, she would strengthen him with food and continued.” This “love” resembled more like lust than the affection she had for the samurai. Case in point, her ability to love seemed to a have depreciated and become more twisted (Monk temple)as her relations progress with many man, each receiving less.
Sensuous woman, Jorge;Jamie;Muneeb
February 23, 2017 Written by j.guzman3 | 5 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
5 responses so far ↓
n.mazza1 // Feb 23rd 2017 at 2:59 pm
I love the way you took different words from the story and brought them to light. The woman in the story uses different words to describe the kind of love she doesn’t seem to understand. She is a woman of lust and lust is all she receives. I also like how you mentioned the way she perceives herself. Although she is a woman of immoral action, she compares herself to a lotus which is the symbol of purity. The story takes an ironic twist. How can a woman be so pure but have slept with other 500 men?
j.yatcha // Feb 23rd 2017 at 10:28 pm
The sensuous woman seems to look back at her life evaluating what she has done. When she looks back she notices that she step with many men, however she rightfully notes that “she didn’t hide anything, you know. With no husband or children, I[she] had no reason to.” Nevertheless, she feels some sort of guilt. She did nothing inherently wrong and yet, she is apologizing for her actions, calling her speech a “sincere confession of all the bad things I’ve [she’s] ever done.” It appears to me the sensors women is slightly conflicted establishing she did nothing inherently wrong and yet apologizing for these acts. The sensuous lady may have entered onto the heroic journey but she doesn’t seem to complete the journey successfully as she is still confused.
b.samura // Feb 24th 2017 at 2:17 am
In addition to what j.yatcha says I agree that the narrator acted the way she did ( sleeping with numerous men) was because she didn’t have anyone to be “loyal” to or anyone that she would have to explain herself to. But later on she does regret her acts and feels shameless and confesses to her sins, and also as you mentioned that apologizes, but who exactly is she apologizing to?
dy154836 // Feb 24th 2017 at 4:43 am
In response to b.samura’s question, who exactly is she apologizing to- I feel like she’s apologizing to herself. She realizes that because of everything she has done she might be going to Buddhist hell instead of the Pure Land Paradise.
It does seem as though her ability to love does diminish by the end. I think that although she does not realize it until the end, every person she sleeps with is another to add to her list and the list grew to more than ten thousand men. As her list grew bigger and bigger, she gets more and more disappointed in the situations she gets herself into.
j.azcue // Feb 24th 2017 at 12:52 pm
I really enjoyed the way they opened the discussion, showing quotations that really show the true and pure love she felt in her first relationship. I completely agree on how they continue to tell the story and how as her life advances and her relationship passes the meaning of this realtionships changes. I feel like the narrator losses hope, this is extremely clear when she accepted the deal the monk offered her. It is amazing how each relationship was dissapointing her a little bit more than the previous one. When she states “I’ve certainly worked in some dirty professions, but is my heart not pure?” I see this as a defense on what she had to go through and I think she sees herself as a victim of her past experiences.
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