Analysis of the Short Story of the Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket

     Every story is based on some idea and theme so that the writer can give its perspective on those themes and ideas, and readers are connected with those themes to have their own view of the world. It is a fact that people do search for their true love in life, but they might be distracted by various other things while looking for their true love. In this short story, the author Yasunari Kawabata has tried to look at different themes that can be associated with everyone’s life such as love, friendship, fate, sadness, and innocence. The story is narrated in a first-person perspective, but the narrator is not identified in the story. The story is strongly connected with a girl, a boy, and the narrator. It seems that the author is filled with feelings of sadness because he believes that life is incomplete when there is no true love around. There can be situations, where human beings are completely helpless and can’t do anything to change their fate into their favor.

            The poetic style of language is used by the author to portray things with more beauty and perspective. For instance, his use of words is wonderful throughout the story, taking this sentence from the second paragraph of the story; “At the base of the embankment was a bobbing cluster of beautiful varicolored lanterns, such as one might see at a festival in a remote country village” It is important to mention here that tone of author is more descriptive at the beginning of the story, but later it gets becomes serious as well as thoughtful. It is always vital to use a tone with some serious thoughts so that the message, as well as the theme of a story, is properly conveyed to its audience. The narrator has elaborated that he is in a school setting and walking around looking at the joy of children. It is giving him pleasure and feeling of love to see these children enjoying their time. The young kids are running here and there to capture bugs and then putting those bugs into lanterns.

            Some of the kids are not capturing bugs, rather they are enjoying by doing some other things, and there are kids, who have taken it as a challenge to capture bugs so that they can compete with others. This variety of activities and emotions of kids depict that everyone has his/her own view of life to enjoy the moment. Some may believe in love and friendship, and others may believe in achieving their own fate. And there can also be people who are innocent and do not know how to react to situations, and they just wait for their fate. The narrator also talked about bell cricket and grasshoppers. The narrator gives a viewpoint that the bell cricket is rare as compared to a grasshopper so when a girl receives the bell cricket from a boy, actually boy shows his love for her as he gives her something, which is rare to find. This is how people show their love to loved ones, and tries to go with their emotions.