WORLD LITERATURE ESSAY “Role of Location and Sense of Place in the Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata and Eugenie Grandet by Honore De Balzac” | |

Role of Location and Sense of Place in the Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata and Eugenie Grandet by Honore De Balzac

Setting involves the physical environment in which the author sets the characters and action. It not only acts as a backdrop for the story; it also creates desired atmospheres which invoke our perceptions and magnify the emotions of the characters. It is often employed as a versatile medium of communication and enables the expression of ideas and thoughts in a powerful way enhancing the verve of literary works. In both the novels, Snow Country (1956) by Yasunari Kawabata and Eugenie Grandet (1883) by Honore de Balzac, the location mobilizes the plot, characters, mood and atmosphere.
One of the most important locations in both the novels is the house. The prime function of any house is to provide shelter and security to its tenants. Yasunari Kawabata and Honore de Balzac both use the physical details within the house to reflect the mental state of their characters and bring to light their dilemmas. In Snow Country, the description of Komako’s house reveals her suppressed feelings. The description of the ‘low stone wall’, ‘small field’, ‘little lotus pond’, ‘low window’ and Komako’s ‘attic room’ bring out the constraints of her abode. The physical compactness signifies the mental compression of Komako’s feelings. A sense of compactness is further emphasized by the repetitive use of the word ‘box’. The furniture in the room included a ‘samisen box’, ‘sewing box’ and ‘boxes stacked along the wall’; the entire room looked ‘like the inside of an old-fashioned paper box’ which creates a sense of entrapment and a feeling of enclosement for Komako. She struggles to speak her mind and is seen to confess her feelings for Shimamura only when she is aided by an external agent such as liquor, which acts as a catalyst to her expression. The location creates a sense of suffocation which even Shimamura experiences on his visit to Komako’s house. After exploring the room ‘Shimamura had the uneasy feeling that he was suspended in a void.’ The ‘still and cold’ air in the hallway conveys a lack of movement and the bare roof sloping down to the window creates ‘a dark loneliness that had settled itself over the room’. This atmosphere of stillness and darkness further accentuates Komako’s insecurity due to Shimamura’s emotional detachment from their relatoinship as he never wishes to commit to Komako.
Similarly, in Eugenie Grandet, the characteristics of the house bring to light Eugenie’s suppressed feelings. The extensive use of ‘iron’ in the construction of the house – ‘iron-barred windows’ in the kitchen, the conspicuous use of ‘heavy iron bars’ on doors, ‘iron plates’ on either side of the long keyholes, the window ‘guarded by a grating of massive iron bars’, the door ‘lined with sheet iron’ and the ‘iron framework’ above the well – create an obstruction, giving the house a jail-Iike appearance. Iron is a strong metal which creates a blockage resistant to any physical force. The excessive use of iron creates a sense of entrapment for Eugenie with no way out. She is unable to express her feelings for Charles considering her father’s oppression. Here again, an atmosphere of suffocation is brought out; which is further intensified by the lack of windows in the house. For instance, ‘Madame Grandet, seeing how white her daughter’s face was opened the window and let in some fresh air.’ Grandet’s ‘grey, cold, silent’ house is also characterized by dark and dusty walls, doors, ceiling and panelling - ‘the dingy colour of the panelling’, ‘dirty wainscoting’, ‘dusty walls’, ‘worm-eaten staircase’. The gloomy interior of the house creates an atmosphere of stillness and darkness that further accentuates Eugenie’s insecurity caused as a result of her inability to speak her thoughts and confess her feelings for Charles.
Therefore, in both novels, the house fails to carry out its primary function of providing security to Komako and Eugenie due to the insecurity felt in their relationships. However, they are seen to unconsciously speak their minds through their actions. Both, Komako and Eugenie, like to keep their surroundings clean, tidy and presentable. The walls and the floor in Komako’s room ‘were spotlessly clean.’ She is also often seen to clean Shimamura’s room – ‘he found her industriously cleaning the room’ where she spends ‘the whole day picking up things.’ Ironically, her act of keeping the physical environment clean fails to provide her any emotional comfort and her obsession to organize and clean her surroundings further shows the desperate need to organize and stabilize the conflict within herself.
Similarly, Eugenie tries her level best to keep her surroundings neat and presentable to impress Charles. She adorns his room to the best of her ability - ‘covering the old table with a clean white cloth’, ‘lighting fire in the fireplace’, and keeping ‘an old japanned tray’, ‘a hexagonal crystal glass’, ‘a little gilt spoon’ and ‘an old glass scent-bottle’ on the mantelpiece. She speaks out her mind and projects her admiration for Charles through her actions knowing the consequences. Ironically, her act of adorning the physical environment does not help her win Charles in the long run, nor does it convince Grandet into giving his approval. It does not provide her a permanent security since she finds Charles to be corrupt in the end and is destined to suffer.
The authors use the descriptive details of setting to establish a contrast between light and darkness to demarcate the exceptional from the ordinary....