ABSTRACT

This chapter examines 'The Family of Koiwai', a good example of socialist realism, traces the growth of a rural, uneducated young girl into a mature woman whose awareness of the general historical and social predicament of women and the proletariat enables her to live with confidence. Therefore the chapter begins with a night in February there was not a touch of fire in the room. Otorne, wrapped in a dyed kasuri nightcover with a soiled shoulder patch, and leaning her face against the table, sat immobile on a folded sewing board placed across a round, brown porcelain hibachi in which the ashes had congealed. Severe cold, coming down with the night from the black suburban sky where stars were shining, froze the streets and the earth of the farm fields, pierced the tin roof, and penetrated to the roots of her hair. She felt faintly the warmth of the electric bulb hanging low in front of the table.