Fusako recognizes that Yoriko’s story is tragic, but she also views it as pathetic, because Yoriko let a man destroy her life. On the one hand, the novel presents Yoriko as a pitiable character chiefly because she is
weak. But on the other, it doesn’t present weakness as a vice for women to the same extent as it is for men. Of course, Fusako has
also centered her whole life on a man, so her resentment toward Yoriko is partially about her own embarrassment.