Botchan

Summary

Botchan is a comic first-person novel about a hot-tempered, stubbornly honest young man from Tokyo who spends a few months teaching mathematics in a provincial middle school and cannot bear the scheming he finds there. The narrator is never named; the old family servant Kiyo calls him Botchan, roughly 'young master', which this translation renders as Master Darling. He opens by confessing an inherited recklessness: as a schoolboy he jumped from a second-floor window on a dare and cut his own thumb to prove a knife was sharp. His parents favour his older brother, and only Kiyo, a servant from a fallen samurai family, dotes on him and praises his straight nature. After both parents die, his brother sells the house and gives him 600 yen, which he spends on three years at a school of physics. On graduating he accepts the first post offered, forty yen a month at a middle school in Shikoku, and leaves Kiyo behind with her nephew. In the little town he gives the staff nicknames: Badger, the principal; Red Shirt, the suave head teacher with a literature degree; Porcupine (Hotta), the blunt head of mathematics; Clown (Yoshikawa), the drawing teacher who flatters Red Shirt; and Hubbard Squash (Koga), the pale, gentle English teacher. The boarding students mock him by writing on the blackboard about the tempura noodles and rice dumplings he eats in town, and on his night duty they fill his bed with grasshoppers and stamp on the floor above him. Red Shirt and Clown invite him fishing and hint that Porcupine has stirred the boys against him. Botchan quarrels with Porcupine over the price of a glass of ice water, which he insists on repaying, and later learns that Red Shirt has taken Madonna, the beautiful daughter of the Toyama family, from her fiancé Koga, and is arranging Koga's transfer to Nobeoka in Kyushu. Offered a raise out of Koga's salary, Botchan goes to Red Shirt at night to refuse it. When a celebration of a military victory turns into a brawl between the middle-school boys and the students of the normal school, Botchan and Porcupine wade in to stop it and are blamed in the local newspaper; Porcupine is forced to resign. The two keep watch for nights from a room opposite the Kadoya inn, catch Red Shirt and Clown leaving after a night with a geisha, pelt Clown with eggs and thrash them both, then leave town by the evening steamer. Back in Tokyo Botchan takes a job as an assistant engineer with the tram company and keeps house with Kiyo until she dies of pneumonia, asking to be buried in his family's temple. Sōseki published the novel in the magazine Hototogisu in April 1906, drawing loosely on his own year as a teacher in Matsuyama. Yasotaro Mori's English version appeared in Tokyo in 1918.

Plot or Argument

• Chapter I: A reckless boyhood and Kiyo

  The narrator recalls the second-floor jump, the cut thumb and other boyhood mischief, his family's coolness and Kiyo's devotion; after his parents die he spends his 600 yen on physics school and accepts a teaching post in Shikoku.

• Chapters II–III: Arrival and nicknames

  He lands at the little port town, tips the inn lavishly, meets the staff and names them Badger, Red Shirt, Porcupine, Clown and Hubbard Squash; Porcupine finds him lodging with the antique dealer Ikagin; the students mock his tempura and dumplings on the blackboard.

• Chapter IV: The grasshopper night

  On night duty in the dormitory he finds grasshoppers in his bed and a stamping riot overhead; he resolves to sit up till he beats the boys, and Kiyo's goodness comes back to him.

• Chapters V–VI: Fishing and suspicion

  Red Shirt and Clown take him fishing, name an island after Turner, and hint that Porcupine incited the students; Botchan tries to repay Porcupine for a glass of ice water, and a staff meeting debates the boys' punishment.

• Chapter VII: Madonna and the Haginos

  Moving to the household of the old Hagino couple, he hears from the landlady how Red Shirt has taken Madonna from Koga; a long letter from Kiyo arrives with advice about nicknames and money.

• Chapters VIII–IX: Koga's transfer

  Red Shirt arranges Koga's transfer to Nobeoka and offers Botchan a raise from the savings, which Botchan refuses; Botchan and Porcupine are reconciled, and Koga's farewell dinner ends in rowdiness with geishas.

• Chapter X: The victory celebration

  A holiday for a military victory brings a brawl between the middle-school and normal-school students; Botchan and Porcupine are caught in it.

• Chapter XI: Eggs, resignation and Kiyo's grave

  The newspaper blames the two teachers, Porcupine is made to resign, and they trap Red Shirt and Clown outside the Kadoya inn, pelting and beating them before sailing away; in Tokyo Botchan works for the tram company until Kiyo dies.

Characters

• Botchan (the narrator), protagonist

  Impulsive, honest young Tokyo man who teaches mathematics in a provincial school; Kiyo calls him Botchan, rendered Master Darling.

• Kiyo, old family servant

  Elderly maid of fallen samurai stock who loves the narrator unconditionally and believes he will become a great man.

• Red Shirt, head teacher

  Smooth, soft-spoken holder of a literature degree who wears red flannel shirts and schemes behind polite words.

• Porcupine (Hotta), head mathematics teacher

  Burly, outspoken colleague whom Botchan first suspects and then joins as an ally.

• Clown (Yoshikawa), drawing teacher

  Flattering hanger-on of Red Shirt who carries gossip.

• Hubbard Squash (Koga), English teacher

  Pale, mild man who loses his fiancée and is transferred to Nobeoka.

• Badger, principal

  Pompous head of the school who speaks of education as a high calling.

• Madonna, Miss Toyama

  Local beauty, once engaged to Koga, now courted by Red Shirt; seen only at a distance.

• Ikagin and the Haginos, landlords

  A grasping antique dealer and then a refined old couple with whom Botchan lodges.

Lessons

• Honesty without tact

  Botchan is right about Red Shirt and nearly always wrong about how to deal with him. Sōseki lets the reader laugh at the narrator's rashness while still siding with his refusal to lie, so the novel holds up plain honesty as precious and also shows its cost when it lacks prudence.

  • Name one scene where Botchan's bluntness helps him and one where it hurts him.
  • Would a more tactful Botchan have beaten Red Shirt, or become like him?
  • Is it possible to be both simple and wise?

• Small debts and large principles

  Botchan insists on repaying one and a half sen for a glass of ice water and walks to Red Shirt's house at night to refuse a raise taken from Koga's salary. The comedy of tiny sums carries a serious point: a person who will not be bought cheaply will not be bought at all.

  • Why does the ice-water money matter so much to Botchan?
  • What does refusing the raise cost him, and what does it protect?

• Kiyo's love as the measure

  The book opens and closes with Kiyo. Away from her, Botchan realises she has better qualities than the man she praises. Her unearned affection is the standard against which the polished double-dealing of the staff room is judged.

  • Why does Botchan think of Kiyo during the grasshopper night?
  • Why might Sōseki end the novel with her grave rather than with the fight?
  • What does Kiyo see in Botchan that others miss?

• Surface manners and real character

  Red Shirt is gentle, refined and soft-spoken; Porcupine is rough and loud. Botchan's mistake is to trust the first and suspect the second. The novel teaches readers to judge by deeds over manners.

  • What evidence leads Botchan to change his mind about Porcupine?
  • Is Red Shirt ever openly dishonest, or only indirect?

Context

Botchan belongs to late Meiji Japan, when a national system of middle schools, normal schools for teacher training and imperial universities was staffed by graduates sent out from Tokyo to the provinces. The narrator's pride as an Edo-born Tokyo man and his scorn for country manners reflect the gap between capital and province. The victory celebration in Chapter X is generally read as belonging to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.

Composition

Sōseki taught English at the middle school in Matsuyama in 1895–1896 before moving to Kumamoto, and the town of the novel is usually identified with Matsuyama, though it is not named. He wrote Botchan quickly and published it in the April 1906 issue of the haiku magazine Hototogisu, while I Am a Cat was still being serialized there; it was collected in book form in 1907. Yasotaro Mori's English translation was published in Tokyo in 1918 as Botchan (Master Darling); the Project Gutenberg text follows the 1919 printing, revised by J. R. Kennedy.

Reception

Botchan became one of the most widely read Japanese novels and a standard school book in Japan. Matsuyama has embraced the association, with a Botchan train and the Dōgo hot springs promoted through the novel. It has been translated into English several times, by Umeji Sasaki (1922), Alan Turney (1972) and Joel Cohn (2005) among others.

Comparisons

• sanshiro

  Sōseki's two young men move in opposite directions: Botchan leaves Tokyo for a provincial school and returns in disgust, while Sanshirō leaves Kyushu for Tokyo Imperial University and is bewildered by the capital.

• kokoro

  Kokoro's Sensei is as inward and guilt-burdened as Botchan is outspoken; read together they show the range of Sōseki's treatment of honesty and betrayal, from comedy to tragedy.

• the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer

  Both are comic, episodic books with a mischievous hero, a doting old woman (Aunt Polly, Kiyo) and pranks played out in a small town.

• don-quixote

  Like Don Quixote, Botchan holds a code the world around him has quietly abandoned, and the comedy turns on whether the reader laughs at him or with him.

• great-expectations

  Both first-person narrators look back on youthful pride, and both measure themselves at last against the humble love of someone they undervalued, Joe Gargery and Kiyo.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The opening anecdotes in Chapter I: the second-floor jump, the cut thumb, the chestnut tree. They set the pattern of a boy who answers every dare at once.
• The nicknames Botchan coins in Chapters II and III, and Kiyo's warning in her Chapter VII letter to keep them to himself.
• The ice water Porcupine buys him, and the one and a half sen he keeps trying to repay.
• Red Shirt's manner of speaking: gentle, indirect and full of hints, especially on the fishing trip in Chapter V and when he offers the raise.
• The return to Kiyo in the final paragraphs, and how short the account of her death is.

Key terms and names

Botchan (Master Darling)

Kiyo's affectionate name for the narrator, meaning roughly young master; Red Shirt's circle uses the same word to sneer at someone naive. Mori's translation renders it Master Darling.

Edo kid

The narrator's proud description of himself as a native of Tokyo (old Edo), quick-tempered and open-handed, in contrast with the provincial townspeople.

Normal school

A school for training teachers. Its students are the rivals of the middle-school boys in the Chapter X brawl.

Hubbard Squash

Botchan's nickname for the pale English teacher Koga, from a pale-faced boy he once knew who was said to eat squash.

Kadoya and Masuya

The inn at the hot-springs town where Red Shirt meets a geisha, and the lodging house opposite where Botchan and Porcupine keep watch.

Nobeoka

The remote town in Kyushu to which Koga is transferred, clearing the way for Red Shirt's courtship of Madonna.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why does Botchan take the teaching post in Shikoku, and what does he leave behind in Tokyo?
2. Comprehension What happens on Botchan's night duty in Chapter IV, and how does he respond?
3. Comprehension How does Red Shirt arrange Koga's transfer, and what does he offer Botchan as part of the arrangement?
4. Interpretation Why does Botchan suspect Porcupine at first and trust Red Shirt, and what finally reverses his judgment?
5. Interpretation Kiyo calls him straight like a split bamboo but too explosive. Is her description fair, and does Botchan change at all by the end?
6. Interpretation The egg-throwing ending is both a victory and a defeat. What does each side win and lose?
7. Big Question Botchan asks whether the honest can ever win in this world. Does the novel answer him, and how would you?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 10:16 (Scripture)

  Sending out the Twelve, Christ pairs the wisdom of serpents with the harmlessness of doves. Botchan has the dove's simplicity and none of the serpent's wisdom, while Red Shirt has the reverse; the novel shows what is lost when the two are separated.

• Matthew 5:37 (Scripture)

  Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. Botchan's plain speech, his refusal of the raise and his disgust at Red Shirt's hints make him an unlikely illustration of this teaching.

• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (Scripture)

  Paul's love that bears and believes all things describes Kiyo, whose faith in the narrator never wavers and who asks only to be buried near him.

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II (Great Conversation)

  Aristotle places virtue in a mean between excess and defect. Botchan's anger is often righteous in its object and excessive in its measure, a useful case for discussing anger as a virtue gone too far.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The staff room rewards polished indirection and punishes plain speech; Botchan will not lie, flatter or accept money taken from a colleague; therefore he cannot stay, yet the novel implies that the man who leaves with his honesty intact, and who is loved by Kiyo, is better off than those who remain.

Rhetorical device: epithet (nickname). Botchan's nicknames, Red Shirt, Porcupine, Clown, Badger and Hubbard Squash, replace names throughout the narrative and turn each colleague into a single comic trait, so that the reader judges the staff room through the narrator's eyes.

Debate: Resolved: Botchan was right to throw the eggs.

Memory Work

A man deserves no confidence unless he is as straight as the bamboo.

Kiyo has been praising me as unselfish and straight, but she is a person of sterling qualities far more than I whom she praises.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace Kiyo through the novel, from Chapter I to the last line, and argue why Sōseki frames the comedy of the provincial school with her.

Comparison with Sanshirō: Compare Botchan, who leaves Tokyo for the provinces, with Sanshirō, who leaves the provinces for Tokyo. What does each young man learn, or fail to learn, about the place he enters?

Medical Lens

Medicine is incidental. The narrator dislocates bones in his boyhood jump, eats raw eggs for nourishment in his lodgings, and in the closing pages Kiyo dies of pneumonia, then a common cause of death among the elderly before antibiotics. Red Shirt's claim that he wears red flannel for his health is played for comedy. The novel offers no sustained portrait of illness or of physicians.

• Chapter I

  The boyhood jump from the second floor, which lays him up for a week, and his father's scorn at bones dislocated by so short a fall.
• Chapter XI

  Kiyo's death from pneumonia in February and her deathbed request about her grave.

  Death Dying Fever Infection

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a staff-room chart of the five nicknamed teachers: the nickname, the real name if given, what Botchan first thinks of each, and what he thinks by Chapter XI.

• Fiction

  Write the letter Kiyo might send in reply to the news that Botchan has thrown eggs at a teacher and resigned.

• Dialogue

  Stage the night visit in which Botchan refuses Red Shirt's offer of a raise, letting Red Shirt speak as persuasively as he can.

• Essay

  Is Botchan a hero, a fool, or both? Argue from three episodes.

Further Reading

• I Am a Cat, Natsume Sōseki

  The comic novel Sōseki was serializing when he wrote Botchan.

• Kokoro, Natsume Sōseki

• Botchan, Natsume Sōseki, trans. Joel Cohn

  A modern English translation.

• Natsume Soseki, Beongcheon Yu