57 pages • 1 hour read
Katsu Kokichi, Transl. Teruko Craig, Illustr. Hiroshige UtagawaMusui's Story
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1843A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “I Ran Away”
In “I Ran Away,” Katsu describes his misadventures when he left his adoptive home at age 14 for approximately four months. He seeks to get from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto and stay there. This chapter includes a map of the relevant places mentioned by the author, which helps situate the narrative (22). To start, Katsu only has seven or eight stolen gold ryō coins, a kimono, and two swords. Within days of leaving his home, he loses his money and belongings to his haphazard travel mates, who are thieves. They introduce themselves as tradespeople and rob him at an inn in Hamamatsu.
An innkeeper suggests that Katsu beg for money at the Hamamatsu Castle to sustain himself, and Katsu is indeed able to get some rice and copper coins. Henceforth, he relies on begging throughout his time away from home. Murata, a fellow beggar, advises him to visit the Ise Shrine and find Ryūdayū, a priest. Katsu makes the priest believe that he traveled all the way from Edo on a pilgrimage when he was robbed. As a result, an impressed Ryūdayū feeds Katsu, lets him bathe, and even gives him a thousand copper coins. This positive experience makes Katsu realize that he can visit other shrines to get fed. This chapter includes a drawing of an everyday scene at the Ise Shrine (26-27) that depicts the shrine full of pilgrims participating in different activities, including sword-bearing samurai. This image improves the readers’ understanding of the author’s visit to that specific shrine.
Subsequently, Katsu decides to return to Edo but runs into several samurai. He criticizes their horseback riding and shows them the way to ride correctly. The warriors are surprised: “This wretch must be the son of a samurai” (30). They feed the boy and feel sorry for him after Katsu embellishes his story once again. One samurai, in particular, and his wife, take care of the young runaway. He stays with them for almost a week and is fed, bathed, and clothed.
Despite their charity, Katsu leaves in the middle of the night to go to Kyoto after all. Spending days without food or money, Katsu ends up among a group of gamblers. The gamblers feed him and give him alcohol (sake) and 900 coins. Shortly afterward, Katsu runs into his beggar-friend, Murata, and thanks him by giving him 100 of those coins.
From this point on, Katsu’s health on the road deteriorates. He experiences different ailments—from fever to swollen testicles. At one point, he is so ill that a priest from a small temple between Ise and Yokkaichi feeds him daily and takes care of him. Katsu sleeps in a hole in the ground, and two other beggars cook his gruel. At another point, Katsu has to use crutches.
On the way back to Edo, some porters help Katsu by providing him with clean clothes and even an appropriate samurai haircut. At Odawara Castle, Katsu meets a coolie—a laborer—named Kiheijj. The coolie lets Katsu stay at his house and provides him with work on a boat during the day and with menial tasks at the house in the evening. Once again, Katsu lies about his background and makes up another name, Kame. Eventually, the young runaway becomes fed up with this hardworking lifestyle despite the hospitality shown to him: “It had been four months since I’d run away from home, and here I was, a samurai, wasting my time at a job that would never lead to anything. I made up my mind to return to Edo and face whatever punishment my father had in store” (40).
Upon his return to his family home, the young man is surprised that everyone is excited to see him: “I was told that in my absence the family had offered up all kinds of prayers and incantations and had even sent a cousin, a nun called Keizan, all the way to Kyoto to look for me” (42). A doctor has to treat Katsu’s various ailments because of his poor condition.
As punishment, Katsu’s father, Heizō Otani, wants him to retire and replace him as the head of the Katsu family. However, the commissioner Ishikawa of the shogunate disagrees with the author’s father and tells him to leave the teenager alone: “By the time he’s older, he will no doubt have mended his ways and be able to perform some useful service” (42).
Chapter 2 Analysis
In the runaway chapter, Katsu comes across as a rebellious young man who refuses to follow rules at home or in the places where he stays during his time away from home. He embellishes his circumstances—or lies about them outright—to achieve a particular goal. With the priest at the Ise Shrine, the teenage runaway pretends to be a pilgrim to be fed. With the coolie, Katsu lies about his name. Of course, Katsu often uses manipulation to survive, albeit in a situation of his own making. At the same time, he expresses gratitude toward those who help him, such as Murata, his first beggar friend, by sharing some of his money.
The author also returns to the theme of the rigid social hierarchy in late-Edo Japan. The 14-year-old Katsu is no longer seen as a samurai but as a homeless person and is treated accordingly. He is mocked as a dirty, wretched beggar. Katsu’s living conditions are awful, and he is forced to rely on begging for alms or other types of charity from religious institutions. Even as a healthy young teen, his health deteriorates in months. Therefore, as a temporarily homeless person on the fringes of society, Katsu forewent the type of social protections he would have enjoyed as a person of higher class.
Another important aspect of this chapter is the theme of luck. The author already emphasized this theme in his Prologue. He states that even the most illustrious historic personalities faced serious negative consequences when they ignored the laws of Heaven. Since he lived a less-than-perfect life, Katsu concludes that it must be luck that saved him from facing such consequences. Here, too, the young runaway appears to be lucky. He meets several helpful people along his journey, each of whom helps him to the best of his ability. These people include the first innkeeper who lets him spend the night after he is robbed and his beggar friend, Murata, who suggests he ask the Ise Shrine priest for help. The samurai, gamblers, coolie, other beggars, and another priest also help him by providing basic necessities. Alternatively, the theme of luck may be interpreted more specifically—as Katsu meets mostly good and empathetic people along the way who are vehicles for divine luck. Even his own family is excited to see him after his escape, contrary to his expectations of the worst-case scenario.
By structuring the narrative as a series of misadventures from which Katsu successfully escapes, the author channels gesaku fiction popular in the Edo period. Gesaku stories feature “roguish heroes” who “extricate themselves from one sticky situation after another” (xviii). The author may have envisioned himself as exactly this kind of a protagonist, thinking of his life as if it were a fictional story and acting as an outside observer of his own experiences.
