The Setting Sun

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1947

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “Snake”

The narrator of The Setting Sun, Kazuko, grew up as a member of the Japanese aristocracy. Now, aged 29, she and her family have fallen on hard times. She recalls a time when Naoji, her younger brother, complained that the titles that once defined their family were not earned. Simply having a title was not enough to make a person an aristocrat, he believed. The siblings’ mother, he insisted, is the “genuine article.” She has the air of a real aristocrat, carrying herself with a grace and an elegance that denotes her class.

Kazuko’s breakfast is interrupted by a stifled cry from her mother. Her mother explains that she is upset by the thought of Naoji. Kazuko’s younger brother is a soldier in the Japanese Army. He was serving in the South Pacific during World War II, and now he is missing. Kazuko thinks about her pain, including illness, failed marriage, divorce, and her infant’s death. Only beautiful and sweet people die young, Kazuko tells her mother. Her “delinquent” brother is not such a person. He would obstinately refuse to die, she believes. The thought makes her speculate briefly about the future death of her mother, which she puts from her mind.

Kazuko is thrown into a reverie. She remembers a recent afternoon spent with the local children. The children found a nest of snake eggs. Kazuko feared that they were the eggs of a venomous viper, so she tried to burn them. The eggs would not burn, so she buried the eggs beneath a plum tree. She regrets her “very cruel” behavior. Next, Kazuko remembers the night her father died. A snake was seen beside his bed. Then, as she cut flowers from the garden for her father’s funeral, Kazuko found snakes knotted around the trees. She believed that they were mourning her father. Since that time, her mother has harbored a hatred of snakes. Reflecting on these memories, Kazuko is struck by the sudden fear that she has brought a curse down on her family by trying to burn the snake eggs.

On the day she failed to burn the eggs, Kazuko was in the garden. She saw another snake. Her mother speculated that it may be the female snake, searching for its eggs. Kazuko was filled with a sense of grief. She is reminded of the time when she and her family were forced to move from their lavish home in Tokyo to a more modest home in Izu, following the Japanese surrender and the family’s dwindling fortunes. Her mother had been terribly upset. Only the presence of Kazuko, her mother had said, made the move bearable. Without her daughter, she would have preferred to die in the house where her husband died. Kazuko’s Uncle Wada found them a Chinese-style house in the countryside.

When the family arrived in Izu, her mother fell ill. The local doctor helped to cure her terrible fever, but Kazuko’s mother was struck by the impression that she had been killed by God and then resuscitated only when she had become “someone entirely different from the person [she] had been” (26).

Since the illness, Kazuko and her mother have lived a quiet life in Izu. Like her mother, Kazuko wonders whether she has become a new person in this new mountain setting. She knows that the “scars of [her] past” are not yet healed (27). As her mother grows thinner each day, she regrets the depravity of trying to burn snake eggs. Kazuko can write “nothing more.”

Chapter 2 Summary: “Fire”

Ten days pass after the incident with the snake eggs. Kazuko feels her mother’s sadness deepening. During this period, she worsens matters by accidentally starting a fire. She fails to properly extinguish the used firewood, which sets fire to the unused woodpile. Kazuko wakes up and discovers the fire. She calls for help and her neighbors help to put it out. The mayor and the policeman are among the helpers; they assure Kazuko that she should not worry, but she is upset by the thought that she might have burned down the entire village.

She visits each neighbor with a note and a small amount of money to apologize. Though most neighbors are sympathetic, Mr. Nishuyama’s young wife chides her. She accuses Kazuko and her mother, the fallen aristocrats, of living “like children playing house” (35).

The next day, Kazuko works in the fields and feels herself becoming “an uncouth country girl” (36). The work reminds her of the war, when she was conscripted to perform manual labor. During that period, she had been afraid to work. A young officer, however, had allowed her to spend the day reading a novel beside a wood pile rather than haul lumber. The incident was her only real memory of the “dreary business” that was World War II. She still has the sneakers she used during her conscription. She now uses them when working in the fields.

Kazuko fears that her mother is becoming weaker. They speak about flowers and death, at which point Kazuko’s mother reveals that Naoji is not only alive but also on his way home. He has become “a rather serious opium addict” (44). This is not the first time Naoji has had substance misuse disorder. While in high school, he developed a substance misuse disorder in imitation of a “certain novelist” that cost the family a vast sum. Due to his opium dependency, Naoji is unlikely to be able to find a job.

To make matters worse, Uncle Wada says that the family is almost out of money. He hopes that Kazuko can work as a governess in the house of an aristocratic family, as any other job would be “impractical” for her. The suggestion infuriates Kazuko. She argues with her mother, threatening to leave.

Later, Kazuko’s mother comes to her and suggests that they sell all their possessions and “live extravagantly.” Kazuko reveals that she has “somewhere [she] can go” (48). Kazuko’s mother refers to an alleged affair between Kazuko and a painter named Hosoda. The affair was merely a baseless accusation by Kazuko’s jealous ex-husband. She is speaking about another man, but she will not say who.

Chapters 1-2 Analysis

The Setting Sun opens with a journey that introduces the theme of The Decline of the Old Order. Kazuko and her mother are leaving Tokyo, the political and cultural capital of Japan. In the two years since the end of World War II, their social state has rapidly eroded. They can no longer afford to live in the capital, so they must retire to the country. They must also drastically lower their living standards.

This journey is not just from Tokyo to Izu, but from the aristocracy to a more modest social stature. The era of the aristocracy, as Kazuko and her mother are discovering, is no longer sustainable. As they move home, their entire social class is rapidly downsizing. As such, this journey from Tokyo to Izu functions as an analogy for changing social conditions in post-war Japan. Japanese society is in upheaval; as much as people would like to cling to the past, the old ways of life cannot be maintained. The country itself is in a state of flux which mirrors Kazuko’s journey into the unknown.

Kazuko is the narrator as well as the protagonist. She is well-read— evidence of the education she received as a member of the aristocracy—and she peppers her narration with literary references, with literature becoming an important motif in the novel. In particular, her allusions to Western philosophy illustrate the encroachment of Western ideas and cultural values under the Allied Occupation. As the narrator, Kazuko’s attention flits between past and present, with Kazuko becoming the point of inflection between Japan’s imperial past and Japan’s post-war present. Her entire existence is balanced on the collapse of the aristocracy; she narrates this decline in real time, juxtaposing it with the luxuries of her past. Kazuko’s narration becomes a journey of discovery, in which she realizes the agency she possesses in this new and chaotic present.

Kazuko was married several years before the events of The Setting Sun, which introduces the theme of The Lingering Effects of Trauma. She does not remember the marriage fondly, nor does she ever mention her former husband by name. Whereas the death of her father and the disappearance of her brother left gaping holes in her life, the divorce from her husband is almost inconsequential. What remains painful—and occasions the only time Kazuko really addresses her marriage—is the loss of her child and the loss of her reputation. Her husband falsely (she claims) accused her of an affair; after her baby was stillborn, he left her amid a swirl of paranoid rumors and loathing. Kazuko does not think about her husband, but her mother’s comments suggest that she is still pestered by rumors of infidelity. Her reputation was damaged by her marriage to a man she did not love. The loss of this reputation has been more damaging than the loss of her husband.