Botchan (Masterplots II: World Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Kinnosuke Natsume
- First Published: 1906
- Type of Work: Comic satire
- Time of Work: The 1890’s
- Setting: Tokyo, and a castle town on the island of Shikoku, Japan
- Principal Characters: Botchan, Kiyo, Badger, Redshirt, Yoshikawa, Madonna, Koga, Hotta
- Genres: Long fiction, Satire
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Nineteenth century, Friendship, Servants, Japan or Japanese people, Students or student life, Feudalism, Tokyo
- Locales: Tokyo, Japan
The Novel
Among the classics of modern Japanese literature, Botchan is probably the most frequently read novel and the most often anthologized work in Japan. Its action is set in the 1890’s, during the Meiji Restoration, when Japan was making its cataclysmic metamorphosis from a cloistered feudal state to a major modern world power. The novel focuses on a few months in the experience of a neophyte teacher nicknamed Botchan (young master). Born and educated in Tokyo, he has accepted a job teaching mathematics at a middle school in provincial Shikoku. Botchan’s...
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