Seventeen Syllables

They say that at the heart of every family tradition is a meaningful experience. However in the Hayashi household, there are a lot of diverging traditions but no family. Due to the characters’ individual attachments to different traditions and cultures, it created a gap in their family dynamic. Hisaye Yamamoto, who is the daughter of immigrant parents, wrote Seventeen Syllables as a look into the gap resulting from having different assimilations to culture.
Tome’s continued practice of haiku showed her deep attachment to her Japanese roots and tradition, one that she didn’t share with her husband and Rosie. Moving to America was a hasty decision and had everything not resulted tragically due to Tome’s affair with “the first son of one of the well-to-do families”, I think Tome wouldn’t have moved to America. It might explain why she has such a detachment to American culture. It was foreign and in a way, forced upon her. Much like her husband and daughter’s view on her haiku’s, as it is irrelevant and alien, Tome discredited American culture. Haiku on the other hand reminded her of her life back in Japan which housed most of Tome’s happiest days, although it was disastrous in its latter
It’s patriarchic in nature, and the women are supposed to be docile and submissive. When the Hayashis visited the Hayano residence, Mr. Hayashi’s bouts of aggressiveness were met with Tome’s meek demeanor, much to Rosie’s displeasure. At one point, Rosie “felt a rush of hate for both—for her mother for begging, for her father for denying her mother.” Western/ American ideals, which are more agreeable for Rosie, encourage gender equality rather than its Eastern counterpart. In Rosie’s encounter with Jesus, the author referenced her “realizing a brand-new power” as the female gaining the upper hand in their budding relationship, probably to contradict the patriarchy in traditional Japanese