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Sections 160–176
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
“People who feel smug” include the one who’s first to sneeze at the new year—though Sei specifies that only commoners follow this superstition, not “people of quality.” Others include new appointees to enviable government posts, or a son-in-law who’s been selected from among many suitors.
The thought of an untimely sneeze prompts Sei to think of the one time (the new year) when a sneeze is considered good luck—though she hastens to classify this as a “common” belief. Again, Sei is ashamed at the possibility of being associated with commoners and their superstitions.
Themes
Sei considers the splendor of high rank. In general, men who advance in the imperial ranks are most impressive. A High Gentlewoman might be prominent, but by the time she attains that title, she is past her prime. And anyway, it’s more impressive when a girl from an average family becomes the wife of a court noble, or even an Empress. Priests generally aren’t very impressive, though bishops or archbishops are treated like “the Buddha himself.”
Men generally enjoy greater mobility among the court ranks them women do, and Sei apparently esteems women’s attainments through marriage more highly than those earned—like the High Gentlewoman’s—through their own efforts.
Themes
The husband of an imperial nurse is an “awe-inspiring thing.” He puts on airs and acts as through the imperial child were his very own, especially if it’s a boy. This role comes with other problems, too—like the fact that a nurse’s husband often demands that she sleep with him at night instead of next to the imperial child, forcing her to hurry into her clothes and rush to the child’s aid at night.
It's not clear exactly what Sei means by “awe-inspiring” in this instance, though she seems to indicate that the husband’s pretensions fit the description. From this anecdote, it’s clear that in some ways, courtly women bear more responsibility than men, as the imperial nurse must balance her husband’s demands with her obligation to care for the imperial child.
Themes
Sei thinks it’s delightful to watch a “ladies’ man,” exhausted from multiple love affairs, painstakingly writing a next-morning letter to a certain lady. He entrusts the letter to a favorite retainer and then lingers, lost in thought. When he tries to fix his mind on reciting the Lotus Sutra, he’s soon distracted by the arrival of his lover’s reply, “surely […] courting karmic retribution by this lapse!”
This is another one of the short scenes Sei scatters throughout the book, not a description of a specific event. Sei seems to be going for a certain comic effect by describing the lover as distracted from religious reflections—even courtiers, it seems, are sometimes distracted from their official duties by romance.
Themes
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On a moonlit night, it’s “enchanting” to overhear someone passing by carriage or on horseback and reciting, “The wanderer sojourns on beneath a waning moon.” On the other hand, it’s “most annoying” to hear someone riding past and to discover, when one puts down one’s things to check, “some perfectly boring person.”
The quoted line is from a poem attributed to Chia Sung, “The lovely lady has finished adorning herself.” Again, Sei’s poetic references demonstrate that her diary entries are not merely personal musings—they are a way for her to interact with and contribute to the poetic tradition of her country.
Themes
It’s disillusioning when someone uses vulgar words. It’s not so bad when it’s done intentionally, but when an older person “who should know better” takes on this “rustic” way of speaking, it’s embarrassing to watch. It’s also embarrassing when a person, or even the author of a tale, uses expressions like “I’m gonna” do this or that.
Sei finds common, vulgar language unbefitting people of higher ranks. Despite coming from a provincial background herself, Sei seems to think that behaving like a commoner is just as shameful as being a commoner.
Themes
