Memoirs of a Geisha: Difference between revisions
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With her unusual gray eyes, Chiyo is to train to become geisha, but is constantly antagonized by Hatsumomo, the resident (and only) geisha of the Nitta [[okiya]]. The arrogant Hatsumomo recognises Chiyo's potential and is upset at any hint of competition, with reason -- another profitable geisha would give Mrs. Nitta the leeway to throw Hatsumomo out. Due to Hatsumomo's machinations, Chiyo is reduced to becoming a maid in the okiya. |
With her unusual gray eyes, Chiyo is to train to become geisha, but is constantly antagonized by Hatsumomo, the resident (and only) geisha of the Nitta [[okiya]]. The arrogant Hatsumomo recognises Chiyo's potential and is upset at any hint of competition, with reason -- another profitable geisha would give Mrs. Nitta the leeway to throw Hatsumomo out. Due to Hatsumomo's machinations, Chiyo is reduced to becoming a maid in the okiya. |
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An encounter with the wealthy and benevolent Chairman changes her luck. They meet when Chiyo is seen looking sad, looking down at the water in the middle of the bridge, mainly because she is a maid and not training to be a geisha at the okiya. The Chairman sees her, and tells her to smile more. He then gives her coins to buy a shaved ice. After, Chiyo goes to the temple and prays to see him again. Soon after, Chiyo wins the eye of Mameha, a successful Gion geisha, whom Hatsumomo despises. Mameha explains to Chiyo that, despite Hatsumomo's beauty and talent, she has never had real success. For a geisha, real success means a wealthy ''[[danna]]'', or patron. (A ''danna'' was typically a wealthy man, sometimes married, who had the means to support the very large expenses related to a geisha's traditional training and other costs. In '' |
An encounter with the wealthy and benevolent Chairman changes her luck. They meet when Chiyo is seen looking sad, looking down at the water in the middle of the bridge, mainly because she is a maid and not training to be a geisha at the okiya. The Chairman sees her, and tells her to smile more. He then gives her coins to buy a shaved ice. After, Chiyo goes to the temple and prays to see him again. Soon after, Chiyo wins the eye of Mameha, a successful Gion geisha, whom Hatsumomo despises. Mameha explains to Chiyo that, despite Hatsumomo's beauty and talent, she has never had real success. For a geisha, real success means a wealthy ''[[danna]]'', or patron. (A ''danna'' was typically a wealthy man, sometimes married, who had the means to support the very large expenses related to a geisha's traditional training and other costs. In ''Memoirs'', geisha are depicted as permitted to engage in intimate relationships with their ''danna''.) Mameha takes Chiyo in as her younger sister and protégé and trains Chiyo to rival Hatsumomo. Chiyo's entrance into apprenticeship is marked by being given a new name: Sayuri. |
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Mameha orchestrates a bidding war between rich patrons for Sayuri's [[mizuage]] (interpreted in the narrative, erroneously, as a deflowering ceremony), and Sayuri's final price is more than enough to pay off her entire debt to the Nitta okiya, propelling her into a career as a successful geisha and earning her adoption by the mistress of the okiya. This causes a rift between Sayuri and Pumpkin because Pumpkin had also hoped to be adopted, an idea that Mrs. Nitta discards after adopting Sayuri. |
Mameha orchestrates a bidding war between rich patrons for Sayuri's [[mizuage]] (interpreted in the narrative, erroneously, as a deflowering ceremony), and Sayuri's final price is more than enough to pay off her entire debt to the Nitta okiya, propelling her into a career as a successful geisha and earning her adoption by the mistress of the okiya. This causes a rift between Sayuri and Pumpkin because Pumpkin had also hoped to be adopted, an idea that Mrs. Nitta discards after adopting Sayuri. |
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Revision as of 07:05, 21 October 2007
| File:Memoirs of a Geisha book.jpg | |
| Author | Arthur Golden |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | September 23, 1997 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 448 pages (hardcover edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-375-40011-7 (hardcover edition) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first-person view, tells the story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before World War II.
Plot summary
It is 1930 in Japan. Before her mother dies, the main character, Sakamoto Chiyo, and her older sister, Sakamoto Satsu, are taken to Gion by Mr. Tanaka. Satsu is sold to a "house of pleasure" as a prostitute, while Chiyo is sold to an okiya, a house for geisha. Chiyo meets Mrs. Nitta, or "Mother," the mistress of the okiya. She befriends the okiya's other trainee, a girl named Pumpkin.
With her unusual gray eyes, Chiyo is to train to become geisha, but is constantly antagonized by Hatsumomo, the resident (and only) geisha of the Nitta okiya. The arrogant Hatsumomo recognises Chiyo's potential and is upset at any hint of competition, with reason -- another profitable geisha would give Mrs. Nitta the leeway to throw Hatsumomo out. Due to Hatsumomo's machinations, Chiyo is reduced to becoming a maid in the okiya.
An encounter with the wealthy and benevolent Chairman changes her luck. They meet when Chiyo is seen looking sad, looking down at the water in the middle of the bridge, mainly because she is a maid and not training to be a geisha at the okiya. The Chairman sees her, and tells her to smile more. He then gives her coins to buy a shaved ice. After, Chiyo goes to the temple and prays to see him again. Soon after, Chiyo wins the eye of Mameha, a successful Gion geisha, whom Hatsumomo despises. Mameha explains to Chiyo that, despite Hatsumomo's beauty and talent, she has never had real success. For a geisha, real success means a wealthy danna, or patron. (A danna was typically a wealthy man, sometimes married, who had the means to support the very large expenses related to a geisha's traditional training and other costs. In Memoirs, geisha are depicted as permitted to engage in intimate relationships with their danna.) Mameha takes Chiyo in as her younger sister and protégé and trains Chiyo to rival Hatsumomo. Chiyo's entrance into apprenticeship is marked by being given a new name: Sayuri.
Mameha orchestrates a bidding war between rich patrons for Sayuri's mizuage (interpreted in the narrative, erroneously, as a deflowering ceremony), and Sayuri's final price is more than enough to pay off her entire debt to the Nitta okiya, propelling her into a career as a successful geisha and earning her adoption by the mistress of the okiya. This causes a rift between Sayuri and Pumpkin because Pumpkin had also hoped to be adopted, an idea that Mrs. Nitta discards after adopting Sayuri.
Over the years, Sayuri becomes a successful geisha, cultivating many businessmen and officials as clients. Meanwhile, Hatsumomo's reputation and status as a geisha begin to decline, while Sayuri becomes more and more successful. Mameha and Sayuri plot to drive Hatsumomo to her breaking point, and Hatsumomo is thrown out of the okiya after attacking one of her customers in a rage.
During Sayuri's encounters with the Chairman, she finds it impossible to get close to him as she desires. Instead, she finds herself constantly being pushed to be with Nobu, the Chairman's dear friend and partner. Although danna-geisha relationships are not depicted as permanent, though some last for many years, Sayuri knows that men in Gion do not become the patrons of geisha who had been with their friends or coworkers: being with the otherwise likable Nobu would bar Sayuri from the Chairman, permanently.
The outbreak of World War II, a theme foreshadowed by growing reference to the Japanese military, represents, structurally, another major challenge for the heroine. When the geisha districts are closed, many of the women are sent to work in the factories, a fate they are shown to fear terribly because of the frightening coughs and stained skins of the factory women. Nobu, however, finds a safer place to send Sayuri. Even so, her successes are quickly made irrelevant, and her physical beauty is tarnished by manual labor and malnutrition. However, these times also make Sayuri reflect on her life. She realizes that she could have managed, even if she had stayed in her childhood village.
When Gion is ready to reopen, Nobu comes to see Sayuri, asking her for a favor. She must help entertain a minister in the new government to give Nobu and the Chairman help in recovering their business, which was damaged during the bombing of Osaka. Nobu's words make it clear that he expects to become Sayuri's danna as soon as he is again wealthy enough to do so. Although Sayuri is grateful to Nobu and otherwise fond of him, she has serious misgivings.
It is not until she puts herself in an undesirable position that Sayuri's desire to be with the Chairman truly frees her to pursue her own destiny. The Chairman then offers to be her danna and after talking with Mother, decides that Sayuri is to retire from being a geisha as well as the Chairman becoming her danna. For a while she accompanies the Chairman to a resort house the Chairman had purchased, and entertained him sometimes Mameha joined in too. Sayuri ended up moving to the New York and starting her own teahouse, where she lives out her life.
Controversy
After the Japanese edition of Memoirs of a Geisha was published, Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel. The plaintiff asserted that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity, if she told him about her life as a geisha due to the traditional code of silence about their clients. However, Golden listed Iwasaki as a source in his acknowledgements for the novel.
In 2003, Golden's publisher settled with Iwasaki out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.
Iwasaki later went on to write her own autobiography, an account vastly different from Arthur Golden's novel, published as Geisha, A Life in the US and Geisha of Gion in the UK.
Inaccuracies
In Memiors, the mizuage is depicted as a deflowering ceremony, in which the geisha had physical relations with a client for the first time. However, this type of coming-of-age was practiced by the courtesans called oiran. A geisha's coming-of-age involved changing from apprenticeship to adulthood, outwardly signified by a changes in hairstyle and clothing.
See also
References
- McAlpin, Heller. Night Butterflies; Memoirs of a Geisha. Arthur Golden. Los Angeles Times 30 November 1997. Pg. 8.