Seventeen Syllables

Seventeen Syllables
Hisaye Yamamoto, 1988

"...Rosie fleetingly felt the older of the two, realizing a brand new power which vanished without category under her recognition...kissed by Jesus, Rosie fell for the first time entirely victim to a helplessness delectable beyond speech."  - pages 29-30

I chose the quotes above for their proximity coupled with stark contrast.  As Jesus is nervous about kissing Rosie, and nervous about her feelings for him, she feels a sense of power.  It usually takes a good deal of romantic comfort for each parties power over the situation to become equivalent.  In this case, Jesus is making the first moves, leaving him with room for error and giving Rosie the power.

What I find intriguing is the sudden shift.  As Jesus kisses Rosie, she becomes helpless, naive in a situation she undoubtedly has no experience with.  However, not only is she helpless but she enjoys being helpless.  "Delectable" is one of those words saved for only the most savory of feelings.  The delectable helplessness references the gender stereotype of male domination and female submission.

What's curious to explore is the relationship between Rosie's mother's love life and her own.  Rosie is young, exploring a sense of forbidden love just like her mother did close to her age.  Of course, her mother was held back by more serious circumstances, but Rosie's parents are traditionally Japanese and it is obvious she has some restrictions placed upon her.  That being said, their early love experiences are similar, and Rosie's mother's experience ended up condemning her to an unsatisfied life.  Her views on marriage are skewed due to her own experience, and she pushes that negativity on Rosie in attempt to "save" her.

In the middle of all this is Rosie's father.  Straightforward and hardworking, he does not share his wife's artistic intrigue.  Instead, he prefers traditional simplicity.  When met with his wife's haiku obsession, he easily becomes perturbed, either due to intellectual barriers or simple disinterest in the arts.

I cannot discern one clear theme from this story.  There are so many sub plots, happenings, and symbolic characters/events that any specific analysis could take me down a line of thought completely irrelevant to the story.  However, love is a clear theme of this story, and coupled with the obvious Japanese cultural influence it analyzes romance through a window we ourselves are likely not very familiar with.  Is the story demonizing love, or the culture that mocks in?  Both?  "Seventeen Syllables" is a window into a foreign culture and thus a foreign form of romance, and thus a different world entirely.