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

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Snakes

Snakes are a recurring symbol throughout The Setting Sun. Kazuko associates snakes with death, particularly with the death of her father. When he was dying, he called out that there was a snake near his bed. After he passed, Kazuko found snakes in the family garden. They were knotted around the trees, as if “to pay his spirit homage” (13). For Kazuko, the image of the garden infested with mourning snakes was ominous. The snakes do not just represent the death of her father, she believes, but The Decline of the Old Order, of which he was a part. The snakes are unfamiliar and alien but, with her father’s death, they are tightening their grip around the family’s property. Kazuko takes this to mean that her family will be driven out through death, decay, and decline. Kazuko’s conscious presentation of the snakes as a symbol of death foreshadows the grief that she will experience in the future.

In the present day, Kazuko finds a nest of snake eggs in the garden of the small house in Izu. Kazuko tries to burn the eggs but does not succeed. She cannot burn the eggs, just as she cannot avert her family’s decline. In trying to burn the eggs, Kazuko is symbolically attempting to wrest control of her fate from the world around her. Kazuko’s mother also becomes sick, and while dying says she believes that she has seen a snake in her dreams. She asks Kazuko to check the porch. Kazuko obeys but, when she finds the snake, she lies to her mother. She claims that the porch is clear while fearing that the snake that she has chased away was the mother of the eggs she tried to burn. The lie about the prophetic dream reveals the disconnect between symbolism and reality: Kazuko may be able to counteract the symbol, but she is not powerful enough to change fate.

Literature

Many of the characters in The Setting Sun are preoccupied with literature, which forms a central motif in the text. As their social order collapses, the possibility of escaping into fictional worlds is alluring. The literary tastes of both Kazuko and Naoji reveal that they have been educated: They quote at length from Western philosophical texts, which not only speaks to the educational privileges of their class but also reflects the encroaching influence of Western ideas in post-war Japan.

The characters also try to write their own works. Naoji believes himself to be a talented writer, but he produces little more than a journal and a suicide note. He wants to be an active contributor to the literary scene, but the closest he comes is announcing himself as an agent to his degenerate literary friends, in a publishing venture that chews through the family’s capital while offering nothing productive in return. The preoccupation with the passive consumption of literature symbolizes the decline of the aristocracy, a well-educated but passive class of people who find themselves unable to contribute to society in any meaningful sense.

Kazuko exists as a subtle counterpoint to this idea. As the narrator, Kazuko is unconsciously contributing to the literary scene by writing her own story. Her letters to Uehara are another form of literary activity that reflects her desire for agency. The well-read, well-educated Kazuko has come to see the world through the lens of literature. Literature symbolizes her desire to interact with the world around her on her terms.

Mr. Uehara is a successful writer. He is markedly different from Kazuko’s family in every way: He is a proletarian writer, emerging into the mainstream as the aristocracy fades from relevance. Nevertheless, in this post-war world, he has not been able to recapture the spark or the energy that made him successful. His writing is in decline; the decay of his talent symbolizes the broader social decay of Japan, suggesting that the rot is not limited to any one social class. The entire nation—not just the aristocracy—has sunk into a terrible decline. Uehara is thus as much of a relic as Kazuko’s mother, yet—in Kazuko—there is a glimmer of The Persistence of Optimism, as literature becomes a symbol of a possible future.

Houses

In The Setting Sun, houses symbolize the decline of Kazuko’s family and the decline of the old order more broadly. The novel begins just as Kazuko and her mother are leaving their house in Tokyo. This large house is lavish, with several servants on hand to take care of Kazuko and her mother. In a political and cultural sense, the house is physically close to the capital of Japan. The large house in Tokyo thus functions as a symbol of the importance of Kazuko’s family and the status they once enjoyed.

Kazuko and her family, like many members of the aristocracy, are forced to downsize their living situation. The departure from Tokyo to Izu, from one house to another, is symbolic of the old order disappearing. The house in Izu is not only smaller than the house in Tokyo but also lacks servants and luxuries. The house is also built in a “rather Chinese-style” manner. When Naoji returns, he does not hide his disgust. He loathes the Chinese aesthetics of the house, explicitly stating that the move away from Japanese style to Chinese style is a downgrade. Like Japan losing the military war, he dislikes that Japan is losing an aesthetic war.

The community’s reaction to Kazuko’s arrival also represents the family’s decline. In Tokyo, Kazuko was insulated from responsibility thanks to her servants. In Izu, she must fend for herself. Early in the novel, she nearly burns down the house after not correctly disposing of firewood. Had the fire spread, the entire village may have burned down. The locals either pity her or criticize her lack of attentiveness. The community’s reaction to Kazuko’s struggles demonstrates how removed she now is from her previously isolated, luxurious existence. She is not just exposed to a lower standard of living; she is now exposed to criticism and pity from people of a lower social status.