A Souvenir of Japan

The main elements of this story deal with the interaction of character and setting. The main character and also narrator of this story is in denial of the truth, her lover is not in love with her, he is just obsessed with the idea of being in love with her. Both of these characters are conscious of this doomed relationship, but both are powerless to stop it. In the beginning of the story the main …

…the most moving of these images were the intangible reflections of ourselves we saw in one another’s eyes, reflections of nothing but appearances, in a city, dedicated to seeming, and, try as we might to possess the essence of each other’s otherness, we would inevitably fail” which I interpreted as passion is not a substitute for true love and because this relationship was based on false pretences therefore it was bound to fail.