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The First Notebook
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in No Longer Human, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Isolation and Alienation
Compassion and Mutual Suffering
Depression, Mental Health, and Stigmatization
Self-Expression, Privacy, and Art
Summary
Analysis
Yozo attends high school on the coast while living with a relative. He likes being away from his immediate family, since it’s easier to carry out his “clowning” around people who don’t know him very well. In this new environment, he manages to win over his peers and teachers by making them laugh. One day, though, he finds himself deeply unsettled by an unsuspecting boy named Takeichi. It’s during a physical training exercise at school. Yozo purposefully fails a physical challenge in a humorous, slapstick way that makes everyone laugh. But then Takeichi, whom Yozo sees as an unintelligent onlooker, taps him on the shoulder and says, “You did it on purpose.”
Yozo has become accustomed to fooling everyone in his life—even his family members, though he suggests that it’s easier to get away with his identity performance when he’s not around people who have known him for his entire life. It is perhaps because he feels so confident in his ability to hide his true nature, then, that he is so shocked when Takeichi manages to see through his façade of gregarious silliness. In this moment, Yozo suddenly faces somebody who seems to see him on a deeper, more fundamental level than he’s used to.
Themes
Yozo is horrified by Takeichi’s words, which make him feel suddenly as if his entire world has gone up in flames. In the coming days, he feels certain that Takeichi can see right through him, even as Yozo fools everyone else into laughing at his antics. Fearing that Takeichi will tell everyone that he’s a fraud, Yozo resolves to endear himself to him by becoming his close friend, but this is more difficult than he would have thought. He wants to keep a constant watch over Takeichi to make sure he doesn’t say anything, determined to convince him that he’s not, in fact, pretending to be a clown. If this doesn’t work, he realizes, he will have no other choice but to pray for Takeichi’s death—but he wouldn’t kill him, since he has never wanted to murder anyone.
It's clear that Yozo abhors the idea of anyone managing to understand him on a fundamental level. He wants to keep the world at a distance, ultimately insulating himself from everyone around him. To realize that Takeichi sees through his guise, then, is to realize that he’s not as protected from his surroundings as he once thought.
Themes
Finally, after multiple attempts to befriend Takeichi, Yozo succeeds by ushering him to his house after school. It’s raining heavily, so it’s easy for him to sweep Takeichi up with the suggestion that they take shelter in his house. In Yozo’s room, Takeichi complains that his ears hurt, so Yozo gently examines them. He sees that there’s pus oozing from Takeichi’s ears, so he carefully wipes it away while soothingly apologizing for taking Takeichi into the rain. He speaks in a voice that he normally associates with women, trying hard to act like a caretaker. Eventually, Takeichi appreciatively comments that many women will surely “fall” for Yozo.
At this point in the novel, it’s still unclear what kind of person Yozo is, so it’s hard to tell what his intentions are with Takeichi. It’s possible, of course, that he wants to harm or scare the young boy as a way of pushing him away. In this moment, though, it seems unlikely that this is Yozo’s plan. In fact, Yozo acts quite tenderly toward Takeichi, behaving in an intimate way that’s somewhat surprising for someone so uncomfortable with the idea of connecting with others.
Themes
Yozo feels somewhat unsettled by Takeichi’s comment about women falling for him. In retrospect, he now sees that Takeichi’s words were oddly prophetic. Throughout his life, attention from women has made him uncomfortable, partially because he finds women even harder to understand than men. And yet, women tend to be drawn to Yozo. While living in his relative’s house in high school, for instance, his two female cousins (who live there too) frequently pay him visits in his room, and though he never wants to talk to them, he never protests—to the contrary, he does whatever he can to make them laugh and engage them in conversation.
Despite his extreme discomfort around others, Yozo goes to great lengths to please people. This, however, doesn’t mean that he actively wants attention—to the contrary, he finds the mere suggestion that women will “fall” for him very disturbing, since this suggests that he’s doomed to constantly evade people by placating them, hoping all the while that doing so will keep them at an emotional remove.
Themes
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One day, Takeichi comes over to Yozo’s house and shows him a reproduction print of a painting that Yozo recognizes as Van Gogh’s self-portrait. Takeichi, however, says that the painting is of a ghost. Yozo is astonished and deeply moved by this strange comment. He starts to think about how some people view the world with a horrified gaze, seeing human beings as terrifying “monsters.” One way of dealing with this is by constantly “clowning” around in an attempt to fit in with these “monsters.” This, of course, is what Yozo has been doing, but he now realizes that some people, like many of the world’s most famous painters, have responded to the horror and strangeness of humanity not by cowering from it, but by unflinchingly depicting it in art. He decides right then and there that he will become a painter.
Takeichi’s comment about Van Gogh’s self-portrait is strange, suggesting that he has an odd way of viewing the world. This viewpoint, however, deeply resonates with Yozo, who suddenly feels as if he has found an outlet for the horror and fear he feels in response to the surrounding world. Rather than hiding his true nature, he realizes, he can depict his most troubled feelings through art. Simply put, he has finally found a mode of self-expression that seems safe.
Themes
Yozo has always drawn cartoons, but now he decides to bravely paint the grotesque side of humanity that he sees on a daily basis. The paintings he makes are—to his estimation—horrifying, but they accurately represent his truest self. He only shows them to Takeichi. If he showed them to other people, they might fail to recognize in the paintings Yozo’s true nature, and this would be mortifying.
Although Yozo has found an outlet that allows him to actually express the way he feels, he’s still quite guarded about sharing this part of himself with anyone else. It’s clear, then, that he still wants to remain isolated from the surrounding world, only feeling comfortable depicting his true nature in a private setting.
Themes
Takeichi, for his part, thinks Yozo will become a great painter. Upon finishing high school, Yozo wants to attend art school, but his father sends him to a traditional college in Tokyo instead. At first, he lives in the dorms. But Yozo hates being surrounded by his peers, so he moves into a nearby townhouse that his father uses when he comes to Tokyo for work. His father is a government representative, so he has to come fairly often, though only when the legislative body is in session.
It's unsurprising that Yozo doesn’t like being around his college peers—he is, after all, deeply uncomfortable around other people. Plus, he’s accustomed to “clowning” around in order to hide his true nature, which means he would have to constantly perform if he were living in dorm rooms, where he’d be constantly surrounded by others. It makes sense, then, that he’d prefer to retreat to his father’s townhouse.
Themes
Eventually, a fellow art student named Horiki introduces himself to Yozo. Horiki likes to think of himself as something of a rebel, and he insists on taking Yozo out drinking. Yozo is skeptical of him, but he deeply enjoys getting drunk for the first time, so the two young men start spending more time together. Yozo still dislikes Horiki, who constantly borrows money from him, but he figures that he's better than the average person—plus, he helps Yozo make his way through life in Tokyo, which has, until now, frightened him.
Yozo doesn’t have many friends. In fact, until this point in the novel, Takeichi is the only person he seems to have spent any social time with, and that was only because he wanted to keep tabs on Takeichi to make sure he didn’t tell everyone else that Yozo purposefully acts like a “clown” to please them. It’s therefore arguable that Horiki is Yozo’s first actual friend. And yet, it’s clear that Yozo doesn’t actually like him, once again proving himself incapable of forging a genuine connection with another human.
Themes
Another reason Yozo comes to like Horiki is that the belligerent young man doesn’t seem to care what other people have to say, making it easy for Yozo to sit back in silence as Horiki rambles on. As they spend more and more time together, Yozo develops certain habits. He starts to like drinking, smoking, and sleeping with sex workers—activities that give him a certain feeling of “escape.” He views the sex workers he sleeps with rather scornfully, having trouble thinking of them as human beings. And yet, he feels completely at peace when he’s sleeping in their arms, safe from his many fears. He even starts to feel like he and the sex workers are “kindred” souls. When Horiki points out that women tend to like Yozo, though, the comment disgusts him so much that he loses interest in visiting sex workers.
Any sense of emotional connection Yozo might feel with Horiki is solely based on the fact that he doesn’t feel threatened by his new friend. Because Horiki is content to ramble on, Yozo doesn’t have to spend all of his time “clowning” around in front of him—he can just brood in silence. In this way, his relationship with Horiki is rather transactional: Horiki gives him a relatively safe social environment in which he can more or less be himself, and, in return, Yozo lets Horiki dominate the conversation. Yozo’s relationships with the various sex workers he visits are transactional in a much more straightforward way, and the fact that he has trouble viewing them as fully human only underscores his inability to relate to others on a personal level. Furthermore, his disdain for the sex workers hints at the ways in which his own problems cause him to treat others unkindly.
Themes
Horiki takes Yozo to a meeting of the Communist Party. Yozo thinks everyone at the meeting is ridiculous and self-important, but he also enjoys watching the members of the Party speak with such absurd seriousness. He finds this entertaining, mostly because he can’t imagine how they could possibly think the things they’re discussing are such dire matters. He starts attending the meetings regularly. To dissolve some of the tension in the room, he acts like the same sort of “clown” he used to be in school, and this makes him very popular.
It's almost as if Yozo can’t help but endear himself to people, even when he doesn’t respect them. He clearly doesn’t feel all that fond of the people in the Communist Party, but he still “clowns” for them as a way of currying favor within the Party. In a way, then, his deceptive way of socializing is something of a compulsion—something he has to do. And, of course, this makes it that much harder for him to ever form actual connections with others, since he’s constantly hiding his true nature.
Themes
Yozo eventually realizes that he likes the Communist Party so much because he enjoys the “irrationality” of its members. In contrast, he hates the rest of society’s orderly commitment to logic. Of course, Yozo is only tricking his comrades in the Communist Party into thinking he actually believes the same things they do, but he likes doing this because it helps him feel a little less isolated in society, in which he otherwise feels like an outcast. He doesn’t care about communism, but he does like the feeling of participating in a secret, subversive movement. He thus doesn’t hesitate to carry out secret jobs for the Communist Party, and though he knows that some of these jobs could get him arrested, he doesn’t mind, since the idea of spending his life in prison doesn’t seem so bad.
Yozo has always been disdainful of anything that is too mundane or overtly logical. When he was a young boy, for instance, he felt depressed at the sense of “human dullness” that came over him when he realized pillowcases serve an actual purpose—he originally thought they were ornamental objects that existed for purely aesthetic reasons. His interest in the Communist Party is thus tied to his aversion to things that are too rational and orderly. Because he thinks the Communist Party is ridiculous and irrational, its lofty ideas appeal to him, as they go against what he sees as the depressingly ordinary, humdrum rules that govern everyday life.
Themes
Yozo’s father decides to sell the house in Tokyo, since his political term is about to end. As a result of no longer living with his father, Yozo realizes that he won’t have much money at his disposal. His father has always given him a monthly allowance, but he tends to spend that on alcohol and cigarettes within a couple days. When his father still lived in the city, Yozo could just put anything he wanted to buy on his father’s account at the local shops. Now, though, he can’t do that. Upon moving to his own place, he burns through his monthly allowance and then feels terrified by his lack of funds. He starts selling things at pawnshops, but he still never seems to have enough money.
At this point in the novel, Yozo begins to develop certain habits that intrude on his ability to coast through life. He has never had to worry about finances before—now, though, he not only has access to less money, but he has also started to lead a lifestyle of heavy drinking and smoking, meaning that he needs a way to fund his habits. Needless to say, this pronounced need for money will only complicate his depressive feelings, compounding his general sense of not being able to move effortlessly through life like everyone else seems to do.
Themes
During this period, Yozo spends the vast majority of his time either meeting with the Communist Party or drinking with Horiki. His schoolwork and painting suffer, but he doesn’t care—and then, he says, he becomes embroiled in a “love suicide” with a married woman. He hasn’t been to class for a long time, and when his family finds out, they reprimand him in a strongly worded letter. Still, Yozo doesn’t concentrate on his studies. But his work with the Communist Party no longer amuses him. All he wants to do these days is drink until he’s completely numb to the world, but he doesn’t even have enough money to do this. Wanting to “escape” from everything, then, he decides to kill himself.
Yozo’s alienation and depression intensify in this period, as he seemingly transitions from an unhappy childhood to an even unhappier adulthood. Previously, his feelings of isolation were pronounced, but he was still quite young and could depend on others to support him. Now, though, he has to worry about money and keeping up with his schoolwork, all while leading an unmoored and joyless life. With nothing to keep him invested in his own life, then, he gravitates toward suicide.
Themes
Feeling depressed and overwhelmed by life, Yozo finds relief at a large café, where he tries to blend into the crowd—he hopes to completely lose himself in the chaos of the scene. But he doesn’t have much money to spend. As soon as he sits down, he tells the waitress how little money he has, but she tells him not to worry, pouring him liquor and making him feel like he doesn’t have to think about money. For some reason, he doesn’t feel obligated to perform in front of her the way he usually does in public.
Yozo seems to find some kind of unspoken connection in the bar he visits, as the waitress puts him at ease for some reason. The fact that she simply tells him not to worry suggests that she instantly senses his somber attitude, recognizing—perhaps—that he’s somebody who carries around a heavy burden. And by recognizing this, she seems to dispel some of his anxiety, ultimately putting him at ease and giving him permission to be himself, which essentially means sulking in silence and brooding over his drinks.
Themes
In retrospect, Yozo can’t even remember the name of the waitress, even though they tried to kill themselves together. This sort of forgetfulness isn’t unusual for him. He does, however, remember the poor quality of the sushi he was eating while waiting for her to get off her shift. He thinks her name was Tsuneko, and he remembers lying in her rented apartment and drinking tea while she tells him about her husband, who’s in jail for conning someone.
Even though Yozo seems to have made a connection with the waitress, the fact that he can’t quite recall her name undercuts the idea that he has finally embraced the idea of having a close relationship with another human. He is, it seems, too caught up in his own difficulties to be fully present in his relationships, once again isolating himself from the people around him.
Themes
As Yozo lies in her apartment, Tsuneko goes on at length about her life and her many problems. He’s hardly listening, but he comes to attention when she says that she’s desperately unhappy. Suddenly, he feels at peace as he lies next to her, no longer experiencing a perpetual state of fear and discomfort. He even feels a sense of freedom and happiness (though he notes that this is most likely the only time that the word “happiness” will appear in his notebooks). When he wakes in the morning, though, the feeling is gone, and he once again feels like a “shallow poseur of a clown.”
Yozo’s happiness is noteworthy, since—as he himself is eager to point out—he’s pretty much never happy. And yet, the reason he’s happy in the first place is because he has found somebody who is equally as miserable as he is, meaning that his brief sense of satisfaction ultimately comes from a place of deep sorrow. And yet, the fact remains that he has managed to make a genuine connection with another human being, and this has somewhat alleviated his feelings of wretchedness.
Themes
In the coming days, Yozo feels uncomfortable about the fact that Tsuneko paid for him to drink at the café. He worries that she is like the other women who have expressed interest in him and that he will feel overwhelmed by her affection. Thinking this way, he regrets letting his guard down and becoming intimate with her. One night, though, he and Horiki are out drinking and run out of money. Because Horiki wants to keep drinking, Yozo takes him to the café where Tsuneko works, since he knows she’ll give them free drinks.
Although Yozo experienced a fleeting sense of happiness while lying with Tsuneko and hearing about her problems, it’s clear that he’s not used to this feeling of connection. Unsurprisingly, then, he begins to doubt the strength of their bond, feeling wary of her in the same way that he always seems to feel wary of the women in his life. No matter what happens, it seems, he can’t let himself get close to another human.
Themes
On the way to the café, Horiki talks about how he’s going to kiss whoever serves them, saying that he’s “starved for a woman.” When they arrive, a waitress Yozo doesn’t know sits next to him while Tsuneko sits next to Horiki. For a moment, Yozo is struck by the uncomfortable fact that he’s going to have to watch Horiki kiss Tsuneko, though it’s not that he’s afraid of losing her—he doesn’t feel possessive—it’s because he feels sorry for Tsuneko. He knows she’ll have to let Horiki kiss her while he (Yozo) watches. And this, he assumes, will make her think she has to cut things off with Yozo.
The fact that Yozo feels bad for Tsuneko indicates that he does, on some level, feel a sense of connection with her. Generally speaking, he doesn’t seem to care what happens to other people. In this situation, though, he does care, and this ultimately calls attention to how different his relationship with Tsuneko is compared to all of the other relationships in his life.
Themes
Yozo braces, waiting for Horiki to kiss Tsuneko. But then Horiki says he would never kiss someone who looks so “poverty-stricken.” Hearing this, Yozo has the overwhelming urge to drown himself in liquor, so he tells Tsuneko to fetch some. He’s embarrassed that even a drunk, ridiculous man like Horiki wouldn’t kiss Tsuneko. He looks at Tsuneko and realizes that Horiki has a point: she looks extremely impoverished and sad. But this just makes Yozo feel for her all the more, as if she’s a kindred soul. For the first time in his entire life, he feels as if he’s in love. He reacts to this feeling by throwing up and passing out.
It's worth noting that Yozo’s sudden love for Tsuneko is directly tied to the fact that Horiki insults her. It’s almost as if Yozo needs to watch Tsuneko’s debasement in order to fully feel for her, since this allows him to feel a sense of kinship with her—after all, he himself feels wretched, so recognizing this same quality in somebody else is a profound experience. Their bond is therefore built on a sense of mutual suffering.
Themes
When Yozo wakes up, he’s in Tsuneko’s apartment. She lies down next to him and talks about how unhappy she is. He resonates with her feeling of being too tired to go on in life. He himself feels like he couldn’t possibly continue to live, so he quickly agrees when she suggests that they both should kill themselves.
Again, it’s evident that Yozo and Tsuneko’s connection is based on their shared sense of suffering. Although this provides Yozo with an outlet, then, it also poses a certain danger, as made clear by the fact that they decide to die together by suicide.
Themes
That day, Yozo and Tsuneko wander the city. Although he has agreed to die alongside Tsuneko, Yozo hasn’t fully grasped the idea that his life will soon be over. But when he goes to pay for a glass of milk and realizes he only has three coins, he’s struck by the horror of his life. He also thinks about how his only other possessions are the coat and kimono that he’s currently wearing, and it’s at this point that he understands that he really can’t continue to live—he must, he thinks, die. That night, he and Tsuneko throw themselves into the sea. Yozo survives, but Tsuneko does not.
At first, Yozo finds the idea of dying by suicide abstract and hard to grasp, perhaps because he has been struggling with depression and feelings of alienation for his entire life, so it's hard to conceive of bringing all this suffering to an end. The fact that the reality of his plan finally strikes him when he goes to pay for a glass of milk ultimately aligns with the way that mundane aspects of everyday life depress him. He thinks he’s never going to experience such a thing again, but he’s ultimately wrong, since he ends up surviving. The fact that Tsuneko doesn’t survive, though, suggests that Yozo will be in an even worse position than he was before trying to die by suicide, since he will perhaps feel guilty that Tsuneko died and he didn’t.
Themes
The news of Yozo’s failed suicide sweeps through Japan, since his father is a prominent politician. He’s taken to a hospital, where a relative visits him and tells him that his father and the rest of his immediate family are so angry that they might disown him. But Yozo doesn’t care—he’s too busy mourning the loss of Tsuneko, realizing that she’s the only person he has ever loved.
Tsuneko’s death undoubtedly makes it much harder for Yozo to heal after trying to die by suicide. Not only does he now face the difficult prospect of moving on with his life after having tried to kill himself, but he also has to carry the traumatic weight of having lost a loved one.
Themes
After his stint in the hospital, Yozo is charged with having been an “accomplice to a suicide.” He’s taken to the police station, but because his lungs are still affected by his efforts to kill himself, they don’t put him in a cell with other criminals. In the middle of the night, an old guard brings him out of the cell and tries to interrogate him, but Yozo quickly recognizes that the man has no true power—he’s clearly bored and trying to pass the time. Yozo thus decides to play along, giving a detailed but inaccurate confession about what happened. This, he sees, greatly satisfies the guard.
Even in dire circumstances, Yozo performs for the sake of other people, this time going out of his way to make up a juicy story to please the guard working the nightshift. Not only does this underscore the lengths he’ll go to in order to satisfy others, but it also highlights just how little he cares about what happens to him—after all, it’s possible that the guard could take him seriously and then have him prosecuted because of this false confession.
Themes
The next day, Yozo meets with the police chief, who’s a lot less intense than the guard was. He comments on how handsome Yozo is and then tells him that the district attorney will decide whether or not to press charges. In the meantime, he tells him to take good care of his health, since Yozo has a bad cough. At one point, Yozo coughs into a handkerchief that is already stained by blood from a pimple. The chief thinks he's coughing blood, and Yozo leans into this assumption, letting the chief think he’s in worse shape than he really is.
Yozo’s tendency to perform for others now plays to his benefit, as he effortlessly capitalizes on the chief’s mistaken assumption that he’s coughing blood—for once, then, his history of “clowning” and deceiving people actually comes in handy in a more practical way.
Themes
The police chief tells Yozo to contact somebody who can act as a “guarantor,” so Yozo reaches out to a man from his hometown—a man he and his father used to call Flatfish. Flatfish agrees to meet him in the nearby city of Yokohama, where the district attorney examines him. Yozo underestimates the district attorney, thinking that he’s a straightforward, simple man. He thus plays up his cough in the same way that he emphasized it in front of the police chief, but the district attorney catches him off guard by smiling and asking, “Was that real?” Suddenly, Yozo is transported back to the day Takeichi accused him of falling on purpose at school.
There are very few instances in which Yozo’s performative deceptions fail. The first time this happened was when Takeichi called him out for pretending to fall at school. And now, years later, Yozo is reminded of this incident when the district attorney recognizes that he’s pretending to cough. Because Yozo is so hesitant to let people see his true nature, he finds this kind of interaction deeply unsettling, as it suggests that he’s not as impenetrable and deceptive as he'd like to think.
Themes
Yozo feels as if he’d rather spend 10 years in prison than have to endure the kind of interaction he just had with the district attorney. Still, the district attorney drops the charges, but it doesn’t bring Yozo any happiness.
It's almost as if Yozo is more unsettled by his interaction with the district attorney than he is by the aftermath of his failed suicide. This, in turn, illustrates just how horrified he is by the idea of somebody seeing through him and thus getting close to his true nature, which he tries so hard to keep hidden.
Themes
