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Summary Of The Samurai's Garden By Vail Tsukiyama

1205 Words5 Pages

Beauty deceives. Those who look the most beautiful end up acting shallow and judgmental, but people who appear unattractive at first glance turn out to show the greatest beauty. People cannot always define comeliness as a well-proportioned face, long, silky hair, or a slender body; it can come in the form of hard work, emotional strength, humor, or intelligence. The Samurai’s Garden, written by Gail Tsukiyama, features a theme of finding underlying beauty in people and objects typically viewed as ugly. Many parts of the world view scars as more than just a memory of pain. In Africa, tribal leaders receive intricate designs cut into their faces, necks, and chests to show their position and to prove their leadership capabilities. Scarification, …show more content…

To the Japanese people leprosy as a disease that brought a person’s innermost secrets, sins, and flaws into the light and turned them into physical defects. Due to this fact and the disfigurations the disease caused, those with leprosy were forced to kill themselves to return honor to their family. When Sachi contracted leprosy she could not stand to kill herself so she sent herself into exile. She went to live in leper colony called Yamaguchi. Yet, when Sachi’s leprosy spread to her face, she started wearing a veil around her head to cover up her “imperfections.” She felt ashamed for others to see her scars even though all the people of her village wore the same blemishes. The idea that disfigurements were shame had been engrained in her from the time of her birth. Even when living in a village with people wore the same blemishes, her scars made her ashamed. Fortunately, Stephen and Matsu were able to show her the beauty they saw in …show more content…

Matsu created a garden of stone for Sachi after she contracted leprosy because she could not stand to view the beauty of a traditional Japanese garden. Sachi’s rock garden soon transformed her life, and into it she poured all of her fears and sorrows. The patterns she raked into the stones and the designs she made from different colored and sized rocks made her garden more beautiful than she or Matsu ever

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