Introvert The Characterization of Komako

26 with him. At that visit, Shimamura wants to have a geisha and he needs help from Komako but she refuses it. She had barely taken a seat when he asked her to call him a geisha. “Call you a geisha?” “You know what I mean.” “I didn’t come to be asked that.” She stood up abruptly and went over to the window, her face reddening as she looked out at the mountains. “There are no women like that here.” p.20 The quotation above implies that Komako refuses to do what Shimamura asks. She does not want to call any geisha and gives any reason because she wants to spend her time with Shimamura. She is rather angry because he does not ask her to accompany him as a geisha. Shimamura has reasons why he does not ask Komako to accompany him. He has concluded that their relationships are just as friends because if it is an affair, it could not last longer. “An affair of the moment, no more. Nothing beautiful about it. You know that-it couldn’t last.” “That’s true. It’s that way with everyone who comes here. This is a hot spring and people are here for a day or two and gone.” Her manner was remarkably open – the transition had been almost too abrupt. “The guest who doesn’t say he’s fond of you, and yet you somehow know is – he’s the one you have pleasant memories of. You don’t forget him, even long after he’s left you, they say. And he’s the one you get letters from. p.22 Based on the quotation above, Komako thinks that Shimamura is the one whom she feels comfortable with. On the other hand, Shimamura is a married man from Tokyo who likes travelling. He goes to Snow Country to do hiking on the mountain. When he goes down to the country, he thinks that every geisha in that country is as beautiful as Komako. The first time he meets Komako, he says that 27 their relationships is just as friend. If the relationships are just as friend, it can last longer and it can give many advantages for Shimamura. In Komako’s thought, this kind of relationships is not what she wants. She knows that it lasts longer if they are just friends. Komako needs the love and belongingness from the other people that she does not have before. It motivates her to get closer to Shimamura. She is lack of affectionate relationships. She also wants the positive simulation and attention from Shimamura. She wants to belong to someone. In her mind, someone who enjoys the best activities or memories will be the part of her life that she will not forget. He felt a little guilty, as though he had deceived her, when he saw how the frivolous words of the traveler who would gone tomorrow seemed to have struck something deep and serious in the woman’s life. But he went on: “I can bring my family here, and we can all be friends. “I understand that well enough.” She smiled, her voice falling, and a touch of the geisha’s playfulness came out. “I’d like that much better. It lasts longer if you’re just friends.” p.26 The quotation above represents the way Shimamura tries to keep the relationships. That way will give advantage for Shimamura but it will give nothing for Komako. It only hurts her. He sees the seriousness in Komako’s decision to get closer to him but he tries to avoid by giving a choice that will make the relationships much better. Shimamura’s saying affects Komako. It makes her heart fragile and she gets collapsed. It can be seen through the quotation below. It was perhaps ten o’clock that night. The woman called loudly to Shimamura from the hall, and a moment later she fell into his room as if someone had thrown her. She collapsed in front of the table. Flailing with a drunken arm at 28 everything that happened to be on it, she poured herself a glass of water and drank in great pulps. p.33 An hour or so later, he heard uneven steps coming down the long hall. She was weaving from side to side, he could tell, running into a wall, stumbling to the floor. “Shimamura, Shimamura,” she called in a high voice. “I can’t see. Shimamura” It was, with no attempt at covering itself, the naked heart of a woman calling out to her man. Shimamura was startled. p.34 That is a woman calling out to her man. Komako cannot lie to her heart. She is an introvert, but she can tell what she feels to whom she relies on. That man is Shimamura. He has changed Komako’s world. She feels that Shimamura is the one she wants to belong to. The previous Shimamura’s decision breaks her and makes her down. She no longer resisted, however. Giving herself up to his hands, she began writing something with the tip of her finger. She would tell him the people she liked, she said. After she had written the names of some twenty or thirty actors, she wrote “Shimamura, Shimamura,” over and over again. p.35 Her face was turned half away, hidden from him, but after a time she thrust her lips violently toward him. Then, as if in a delirium she were trying to tell of her pain, she repeated over and over, he did not know how many times: ”No, no. Didn’t you say you wanted to be friends?” p.37 The quotation above is the hardest part when Komako has to convince Shimamura about her feeling. Although she responses him unconsciously, that statement is her real response to him. She wants to heal her pain because she cannot accept the reality about the relationships. She loses control and being unconfident. But then she said: “I won’t have any regrets. I’ll never have any regrets. But I’m not that sort of woman. It can’t last. Didn’t you say so yourself?” She was still half numb from the liquor.