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HIS 184 Essay 1
HIS 184 Essay 1
The Soil, written by Nagatsuka Takashi, offers a very realistic view of the lives of one
poor farming family around 1910. It is set around the time of vast modernization and
westernization that are characteristic of the Meiji era, and Takashi's novel reveals how lower
class farmers were affected by these reforms. The quality of the characters' lives in The Soil are
also vastly different when compared to a merchant family's life as seen in Makiko's New World
which is also set in 1910. While the country was undergoing massive changes, the farming
villages tended to remain much the same, with few changes, with their work routines only
The author of The Soil was the first son of a substantial landowning family, born in 1879,
and based the novel's community on his own village. Many of the characters are drawn from
individuals from his village, even his own mother is the model for "Okamisan" (Takashi, 1989:
viii). Because of his background, he was in the position to observe and be involved with all of
the members in his community as well as visit other villages and attend middle school. Even
though The Soil is written as a novel, it is still a very good source of accurate historical facts
because of, in part, who the author is. When Oshina becomes terribly ill with tetanus, Kanji, her
husband, runs to fetch a doctor who can give her medicine, drugs that are then injected with a
hypodermic needle. This is very interesting because during most of the novel, the lives of the
farmers could be mistaken for those of a century earlier, but the reader is constantly brought back
to 1910 with little hints like the medicine, needles, railroads and others. The presence of such
modern medicine, though not very available to tenant farmers like Kanji, was becoming more
and more available with Japan's interactions with foreign countries like Germany.
establishment or house was a very common for bolstering the family's income, decreasing the
amount of food needed at the house, and teaching the daughters important life skills. Studies of
villages in central Japan show that three-fourths of the daughters of tenants from one village left
home in search of work while almost two-thirds from another were sent into service outside of
the village at least one time (Bernstein, 1991: 50). Oshina and Kanji had planned on sending
their daughter into service when she was 15 and her infant brother was old enough that he did not
need as intense constant supervision. Walthall also talks about the occurrences of premarital sex
among the village youth. While it is still widely assumed that the official samurai teaching were
the norm: "After a girl is ten, she should not mix with boys. After she is twelve or thirteen, she
should not come near men" (Bernstein, 1991: 50-51). However, that is not the case with many
village youth including Kanji and Oshina. These two had had many encounters with one
resulting in Oshina becoming pregnant at 19 years old. Due to her pregnancy, her family and
Kanji's family met to resolve the issue, deciding to have them marry each other to avoid a
scandal. Several historians argue that the evidence from areas around Japan suggest that sexual
relations were permitted in order for the boys to spend time with girls and then chose a marriage
partner or were permitted only after the couple became engaged (Bernstein, 1991: 51). The Soil
follows Otsugi's family in detail in such a way that readers become sympathetic to the horrible
but real hardships suffered by tenant farmers seen in history books, but presented in novel form.
The opportunities for the two children, Otsugi and Yokichi, in The Soil are greater in
number than those available to their parents, Oshina and Kanji, or their grandfather, Uhei. One
major new import into their lives, by means of their diet, is the new foodstuffs including salt and
beef. In a survey compiled in 1910 in a village shows that 65 percent of food money went for
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rice and grains with 13.5 percent going towards vegetables and none on meat, which was
considered a luxury even in urban areas (Hane, 1982: 40). For Otsugi's family, their diet was
very heavy on starches with their meals consisted mainly of rice mixed with barley, few
vegetables and some eggs. However, when Kanji's sister Otsuta suffered severely from a flood,
the village office gave her, among other things, lumps of table salt and cans of boiled beef which
she graciously brought over to Otsugi's house. These items were extremely rare in the rural areas
of Japan to the extent that one of their neighbors remarked "Is it really salt? I've never seen
Another opportunity of the children was schooling seeing as attending was made
compulsory. The Meiji era brought with it a number of reforms including one regarding
education used towards strengthening the foundation of the new Japan. The new Japanese
government sent a number of citizens of all ages on missions to foreign countries to learn new
technologies and methods and bring back this knowledge to the Japanese people. One such bit of
knowledge is mentioned briefly in The Soil as a passing remark made by one of the main
characters named Kanji. On his way to the doctor in another village, he notes how straight the
path is because of the vast amount of land adjustment and the new irrigation system being used
for the paddies that absolutely fascinates him (Takashi, 1989: 155). This and other new farming
methods were incredibly beneficial in increasing food production to feed the growing Japanese
population. Not much is mentioned in The Soil about what Yokichi learns at school, but only
states that he leaves to and returns from school. It can be assumed that he was taught during the
course of the novel basic reading and writing skill as well as having the ideas of filial piety and
patriotism drilled into his mind (Gorden, 2003: 105). His books were manufactured in a factory
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and issued by the government who kept strict reign over what was taught and how it was taught.
After all, the Meiji government stressed advancing the nation instead of advancing the
individual.
While Otsugi and Yokichi were exposed to more opportunities than their older relatives,
their experiences and lives differ drastically from those of a daughter in a merchant family
depicted in Makiko's New World. Otsugi, at 13, began caring for Yokichi when he was born, a
duty which she continued until her mother died at which point she became a surrogate mother for
him. That year, she began working in the fields every day from sun up to sun down while
juggling all of the household chores of cleaning, cooking, sewing, and caring for Yokichi. As a
result of all of this manual labor, she is constantly tired and dirty and acquires blisters and dry
broken skin. All of this work is done to earn enough money to buy just enough food and clothing
to survive. Makiko, on the other hand, is part of a significantly more wealthy family and thus
does very little if any manual labor. Makiko is reprimanded by her mother-in-law at one point
because she had been avoiding work and letting the servants do everything without even
supervising them. Being in the city and part of the merchant family, she has time in which to
socialize with friends, visit temples like the Kiyomizudera, and even watch a noh play. The
closest Otsugi gets to any of these activities is taking sewing lessons with other girls.
As for paying for food, Makiko hosts a memorial service banquet for 26 people at a rate
of 1 yen 50 sen per person. The total cost for food comes out to 39 yen, an impossible amount for
Otsugi to even imagine having on hand to spend. For her, being put into service at another house
would only get her roughly 10 yen a year (Takashi, 1989: 27). While Otsugi's diet consists
mostly of starch, like barley-rice gruel and pickles, Makiko has the chance to taste exotic
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Western foods like bananas and Munich beer. She even takes Western cooking lessons. Even
their basic living conditions were drastically different. Makiko's husband installed Western doors
in some rooms in their house which held a phone, binoculars and a snapshot camera that cost 23
yen. Otsugi's house on the other hand is made from wood, straw, and dirt. While not described
explicitly, most tenant farmers like her family "lived in dark tiny homes with dirt floors in the
kitchen and wooden boards... in the rest of the house. Their dwellings were drafty and bitter cold
story that draws the reader into the troubles of the villagers. Within the story, the reflections of
the Meiji Restoration are visible in the tiny hints of modernization in medicine, farming
techniques, and education. More and more opportunities are available, slowly trickling down
from higher families like Makiko's to the poor farmers in the village.