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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Pillow Book, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Court Life vs. Common Life
Poetry and Social Relationships
Aesthetic Beauty, Delight, and Cultural Tradition
Romance and Official Duty
Summary
Analysis
Sei looks down on the rank of Acting Provincial Governor or other fifth-ranking titles, finding the respectable, tidy lives of such men “depressingly staid and unambitious.” A lady living alone in a dilapidated house with an overgrown garden is likewise “forlorn.” On the other hand, it’s “boringly unromantic” when a lady cleans up her property and keeps it running “in punctilious fashion.”
Here, Sei’s prejudice against people who lead boring, ordinary lives comes through again. In her estimation, living a common life is terribly sad, boring, and hopeless.
Themes
Sei tells a story of a charming gentleman paying a visit to Lady Someone. It’s a misty dawn, and the man is going to great lengths to leave the woman with a glowing impression, murmuring the lines, “though there in the dawn sky / the moon hangs bright.” As the woman leans forward, the moonlight gleams on her head. The man slips away in astonishment at this sight. Sei concludes, “This was a tale that someone told.”
Sei relates an old-fashioned romantic story, like those that court ladies might exchange. The quoted poem is from a seventh-century Japanese poet. However, scholars have suggested that the final passage might mean that the woman’s wig slips off, revealing her shiny, bare head. If that’s true, then the story turns into a spoof of its genre.
Themes
Recollections of snow lead Sei to recall a story set during the reign of the former Emperor Murakami. After a great snowfall, the Emperor collected a bowl of snow with a spray of flowering plum in it and presented it to Lady Chamberlain Hyoe, asking her to compose a poem about it. She comes up with “At times of snow, moonlight and blossom,” and the Emperor praises the aptness of her choice.
The lines are from a poem by Bo Juyi. Sei seems to aspire to Hyoe’s level of poetic recall, since her choice of poem so perfectly captures the circumstances of the moment—exactly what was prized by the court culture.
Themes
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Sei recalls that when she first entered Empress Teishi’s service, she was frequently overwhelmed with confusion and embarrassment, even to the point of tears. Empress Teishi began taking out pictures to show and discuss with Sei, trying to set her at ease. The head of Sei’s room scolds her for being so shy, pointing out that the Empress has been showing her special favor. She watches and envies the nonchalance of the other ladies in the Empress’s presence.
Sei jumps backward in time to recollections of her earliest days as a gentlewoman. The “head” of Sei’s room would have been the lady in the shared living quarters who had been in the Empress’s service the longest, so her disapproval indicates that Sei was not such a confident, quick-witted gentlewoman in her early days at court.
Themes
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At one point, Sei is watching Grand Counsellor Korechika visiting with the Empress and her ladies, all of them conversing freely. Sei is mortified when the Grand Counsellor becomes curious about the figure behind the curtain and draws close to speak to her. Even though Sei is sweating over her “shameful impudence […] in daring to presume I could serve at court,” he continues chatting with Sei and fidgeting with her fan. The Empress tries to distract the Grand Counsellor with a calligraphy book, but he persists in trying to draw Sei into the conversation, to her distress. Later, Sei comes to realize that none of these people are angelic beings, and that all gentlewomen felt much as Sei did when they first began service.
Compared to Sei’s portrayal of herself as a poetry-reciting, punning, and teasing gentlewoman throughout much of The Pillow Book, this shy, retiring Sei is almost unrecognizable. Her account shows how otherworldly the members of the imperial household would seem to a young woman newly arrived on the palace grounds.
Themes
Once, Empress Teishi asks Sei if she’s fond of her. Sei asserts that she is, but someone immediately sneezes. The Empress says, “Oh alas, I see you’ve lied to me!” Ashamed and indignant, Sei returns to her room and sends the Empress a poem which says that while we can judge a flower by the strength of its hue, “that red nose bloomed false / And so my flowering heart withers alone / to find itself in misjudged misery.”
According to superstition, a sneeze indicated that something bad was happening—hence the Empress’s response to Sei’s indignant poem selection.
Themes
