The Setting Sun

Kazuko is the narrator and protagonist of The Setting Sun. She is a 29-year-old woman who moves from Tokyo to Izu two years after the end of World War II. The move represents her family’s decline in fortunes: From a large urban home, filled with servants, to a small Chinese-style villa in the countryside, Kazuko bears witness to the changing social landscape of Japan, even if she does not entirely comprehend what her situation represents on a broader level. To Kazuko, this decline is felt on the individual level. She struggles with the adjustment to rural life, blaming herself for nearly burning down the village and taking it upon herself to apologize to her neighbors. 

This emphasis on individual experience is also evident in Kazuko’s memories of the war. While hundreds of thousands of her compatriots were dying, she experienced the war as an aristocrat who was conscripted to perform manual labor. The war, to her, was the initial degradation of her status and social class. Everything since then, including the loss of the war and the post-war years, has been a continuation of this process. 

Since Kazuko narrates the decline from a personal