The Setting Sun 2

Chapter 5 – The Lady
In this chapter, the author focuses the text around the mother and her eventual death from tuberculosis. Kazuko’s mother is portrayed as the last traditional lady of Japan. The author adds some interesting context including economic theory from Luxemburg and Marxism belief from perfection to destruction; “Man was born for love and revolution” (114). Also, we are shown a couple of recurrent themes in the reference to sails and the mother’s dream about the snake. The snake, perhaps, seeks revenge for her eggs and achieves its goal through the mother’s death. Kazuko laments at the end of the chapter; she believes that life is a struggle, a battle, and tells us that “I must go on living” (124).

Chapter 6 – Outbreak of Hostilities
This chapter was a little confusing. Kazuko discusses how she can depend on love and nothing else, speaks about more than just physical love or human love. I believe she’s talking about the two kinds of unconditional love, both spiritual love and the unconditional love a parent has for a child. Maybe this is why she appears so darn desperate to breed with Uehara. There are obvious conflicts at work in the text. On the one hand, we have Naoji, nihilistic and overwhelmed, who kills himself, and Kazuko and Uehara who profess their love and eventually procreate.

Chapter 7 – The Testament
This chapter is Naoji written memoir which serves as his suicide note.
Naoji portrays his personal torment when he says that “only those who wish to go on living should” (153). In the memoir, Naoji laments about his unrequited love for Suga, the painter’s wife—a contributing factor to Naoji’s negative mindset.

Chapter 8 – Victims
In the closing chapter, Kazuko is pregnant and Naoji is dead, portrayed by Dazai as “victims of a transitional period of morality” (173). As Japan rebuilds, traditions change and the modern world definitely creeps in. At the end Kazuko tells us that “in the present, the most beautiful thing in the world is a victim” (174). I found the characters in the novel rather flat compared to Western novels. They lack depth and do not appear to grow or change. Maybe that was the point. I just do not know.