A Souvenir of Japan

Analysis

The story is about Japanese and a Caucasian woman. They have a romance. It's hard to say "love" because it seemed to me through reading that it was not loved as much as the excitement and taboo for them. Their secret rendezvous and ineffective communication (Barthes, 33).

No discussion about the "elephant in the room" and a lot of tension over what they both knew about their relationship. The main character, not Japanese education or thought he saw the hypocrisy in Japanese culture ... a "world of icons and not participate in the rituals to transmute life ...