A Sense Of Belonging In Izu No Odoriko

Izu no Odoriko is a story of change and experiencing a sense of belonging. The story starts out with a young adult male student finding refuge from the rain in a tea house whilst on vacation in the mountains. The boy is mesmerized when he sees a beautiful girl and lusts for her, only to later find out that she was thirteen years of age, that of a mere child. The student sees that the girl is part of a group of entertainers and joins in on their venture around the island. In short, the boy finds a sense of belonging in a sort of familial way for the first time in his lonely life. The boy’s journey ends with him going back home to Tokyo, but with the newly learned characteristic of being altruistic. There are two translations of the story, one
The part talking about the brother’s task of keeping the family reputation was not included in Seidensticker’s version. This goes to show that he did not find the part about reputation to be significant enough for his readers to care. The story, Izu no Odoriko, was created in Japanese for the Japanese. Seidensticker’s version was intended to be suitable for a more American audience. Seidensticker did not talk about the reputation, or honor, because it wasn’t an important characteristic of Americans at the time. Seidensticker created his version of the story in 1955, soon after World War II ended. With the end of the war, there was still some tension in the air between the Japanese and Americans. Seidensticker might have not touched upon the idea of honor because of how heavy a role it played throughout Japanese history and culture. Seidensticker’s reason could have been to stray away from the Japanese mind frame and just translate a story for people to read. Thus, there is a loss of understanding of culture and history in the