Tiffany James- English 145

" Separate Ways" This is a short, amusing tale between two main characters Okya and Kichizo with an heart wrenching ending. Both Okya and Kichizo are two of unlikely characters that develop a big sister/lil brother relationship. They are both poor and can barely take care themselves “If only I could sew you a nice Kimono, it would be a happy day. I’d gladly do it. But look at me. I don’t’ have enough money to dress myself properly. I’m sewing to support myself” (908). However Okay is optimistic that her luck will one day change regarding her financial status, whereas Okya believes that it was his fate to be poor. Predicting that he will never succeed. Kichizo is an abandoned child, longing to know his identity; he has no family or friends. He has found companionship with Okya, who has been extremely kind to him (910). The narrator recounts his story of how he came to work at the umbrella shop. He was taken in by the owner who has been dead for two years. He is now in the ...

The underground man’s character and profession are introduced to us in the beginning of the story. He describes himself as a spiteful, unpleasant, and sickly man who worked in the civil service (636-637). Then after some consideration he’s concluded that since he was an honest man and did not accept any bribes that being this way was a reward to himself, which one can assume that he is insinuating that taking bribes were a common theme for a man in that position. He speaks of the enjoyment in a toothache which I believe is a metaphor for being unable to do anything about the society he is living in. “In the first place, these moans express all the aimlessness of the pain which consciousness finds o humiliating, the whole system of natural laws about which you really don’t give a damn, but because of which you’re suffering nonetheless, while nature isn’t” (642). You can moan about your tooth ache or world around you but it’s too no avail because to do something about it you still ha...