The pillow book allows readers to emerge themselves into the lifestyle of Japanese culture told through Sei shonagon during her many observations of the world she sees. I truly enjoyed this reading because theirs so many descriptive images that allow readers to really analyze each line and find a significant meaning behind it. From the start of the reading I was drawn to Sei Shonagon metaphors, her wording, and her distinct sense of her surroundings.I found the second paragraph in the beginning of the book to be interesting when she talks about the four seasons. But when she spoke about summer I was drawn to her descriptive images. She mentions “In summer, the night-moonlit nights, of course, but also at the dark of the moon, it’s beautiful when fireflies are dancing everywhere in a mazy flight. And it’s delightful too to see just one or two flies through the darkness, glowing softly. Rain falling on a summer night is also lovely.” Each line goes with each other, the words of each line has their own unique meaning which gives a bigger sense of how summer is portrayed. She mentions fireflies are dancing in a mazy flight; fireflies are small insects that only come out at night. I found fireflies to be important because when fireflies begin to come out at night that’s a sign that summer is arriving. I see Fireflies as a symbol of summer, warm weather. The second line says fly through the darkness, glowing softly. Darkness I found to be a descriptive word in this line because in darkness you can’t see anything it’s pitch black, but fireflies use their light to brighten up the summer sky. Glowing softly, I interpreted as the fireflies providing light at night but their light is dim and at the same time their dim light is powerful enough to brighten the summer night. Sei Shonagon finds the beauty of each season and truly reflects upon it through her writing.
I found the second paragraph in the beginning of the book to be interesting when she talks about the four seasons. But when she spoke about summer I was drawn to her descriptive images. She mentions “In summer, the night-moonlit nights, of course, but also at the dark of the moon, it’s beautiful when fireflies are dancing everywhere in a mazy flight. And it’s delightful too to see just one or two flies through the darkness, glowing softly. Rain falling on a summer night is also lovely.” Each line goes with each other, the words of each line has their own unique meaning which gives a bigger sense of how summer is portrayed. She mentions fireflies are dancing in a mazy flight; fireflies are small insects that only come out at night. I found fireflies to be important because when fireflies begin to come out at night that’s a sign that summer is arriving. I see Fireflies as a symbol of summer, warm weather. The second line says fly through the darkness, glowing softly. Darkness I found to be a descriptive word in this line because in darkness you can’t see anything it’s pitch black, but fireflies use their light to brighten up the summer sky. Glowing softly, I interpreted as the fireflies providing light at night but their light is dim and at the same time their dim light is powerful enough to brighten the summer night. Sei Shonagon finds the beauty of each season and truly reflects upon it through her writing.
Questions:
1: Whats significant about Sei Shonagon describing the four season in such a descriptive way.
2: What universal meaning can you get from reading The Pillow Book?
The main significance in how Shonagon’s description of the four seasons is the actions and beauty during and of each season. Spring is a season that teases in the summer months of action. Spring as wisps of color and summer with the dance of the fireflies. In these depictions, we have emphasis on both times of the day and seasons which shows that their is beauty in all the seasons at different parts of the day.
I think that it’s significant that she described everything in the way that she did because it made all the imagery possible. She projected beautiful scenery and it was only possible by having as descriptive as possible. She was able to capture all the beauty in the seasons in the opening poem. It’s also important that she did it in this manner to implicate and relate the poem to life. She had to have it described the way it is to get her point behind in the last few lines.
I enjoyed reading Sei Shonagon’s descriptions about the four seasons. It was very pleasantly descriptive. I enjoyed the summer nights when she wrote “when the fireflies are dancing everywhere in a mazy flight. And it’s delightful to see just one or two fly through the darkness, glowing softly.” It became visual in my head, how delightful it is to see fireflies on a breezy summer night out when your hanging out with your friends.
But when reading the Pillow book, I couldn’t put my finger on what the universal meaning to this story was. This book seemed to be simply just her personal journal where she wrote whatever came across her mind. Writing about gossip in the court but using different characters because she was too scared to reveal their true identity, nature, poems and etc.