Literary Analysis Essay on the Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket

Introduction

Mating rituals can cause physical damages just as how a male praying mantis can be eaten right after reproduction and when it comes to courtship in humans, there can be psychological damages. The author, Yasunari Kawabata studies the impacts of courtship between new people and uses the meetings as an allegory for courtship in human beings in general. Therefore, the narrator uses this theme to encourage people to have an open mind when it comes to searching or trying to win a partner or rather a mate.

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In the story, children hunt grasshoppers and crickets in the bushes at night using their lanterns which are very colorful. At some given point, a boy gives a specific girl something that is he thinks is a grasshopper, by doing this act, which symbolizes fertility in Japanese culture, shows the metaphor for human sexuality where a man transfers his seeds into a woman using the sexual parts. However, there is sarcasm when the girl learns that what is placed in her hands was cricket and not a grasshopper and it is due to this irony that the theme is brought to light.

It was clear that the boy wanted to impress the girl because he thought to have given her a grasshopper, but instead, the girl was delighted to have found out that the insect was a bell cricket "her eyes shown" when she saw the insect (Gale, 429). The boy seemed to have missed the girl's pleasure and decided to focus on his uneasiness because, he utters "Oh it's a cricket" in a disappointed tone (Gale, 429). Since that moment, the boy suffered mentally and psychologically because he had so many expectations that did not happen as he had anticipated. Consequently, in human courtship, these are some of the problems many people encounter if the expectations are too high. The author further advises the boy to have an open mind "laugh at a girl's delight with pleasure" when she found out the bell cricket (Gale, 430). So in matters regarding human mating, people should be open minded.

The story also tells childhood's innocence through the eyes of an observer, as he talks of the children's emotions and the process of creating the lanterns. The author tries to express the efforts made by the children into making the colorful lanterns for chasing the crickets and grasshoppers at night. Similar to the author seeing the name Fujio in green on the breast of the girl and the name Kiyoko on the waist of the boy in red, this incidence describes the children's innocence while chasing the grasshoppers and crickets (Gale, 379). Moreover, the story shows an essential lesson on misjudgment because many people aim for acceptance and to fit right in the society it indicates that in this life we are all on the hunt for recognition.

Conclusion

According to the narrator, the use of the lanterns symbolized the inborn creativity that every human being possesses when they are very young. The children viewed the lanterns as something that they could use as a competitive tool thus trying every best technique to create the best and unique lantern among their friends. In addition to this, the author perceives the lanterns as a good memory of how his childhood was, maybe reminiscing the feeling of having a lantern when he was a child. The lanterns also symbolize the soul of the children and how they are full of fire, their souls easily connect even though they do not notice it.

Work Cited

Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Yasunari Kawabata's "Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket." Gale, Cengage Learning,https://commons.marymount.edu/en200fa16/category/the-grasshopper-and-the-bell-cricket/