On "Rationing"

So.....In rationing there were many things that seemed to make little to no sense to me, the first of them being the presence of Uncle Kotai in the beginning of the text, he is introduced, constructed for what seems like no reason other then to let Saburo's character develop (and even that explanation is hard to believe), and then killed off.  Then after the majority of the story, Kotai is mentioned again and for the last time when Waters is describing Saburo.  The only other reason I can think of Kotai being in the story at all is to set a mood for the rest of the story.  1) What is the deal with Uncle Kotai, what purpose does his character serve in the text?  The other main thorn is best described by: "There was no response.  The awkward streetcar flashed into his mind, and in that moment of panic he understood himself to be on the verge of something he had feared subconsciously, all his life." (p. 6).  Yet, even by the end of the story, I, at least, had no idea that Saburo was afraid of much.  I guess what I am wondering is if anyone else felt that this text is so normal, it is almost mundane, but at the same time, it elicits emotional responses that should not surface from a mundane text. -Tyler

Comments

[Evan J. Biederstedt]

As the only other person who admitted to having liked “Rationing”, I did a bit of research on the author and apparently the story seems semi-autobiographical. Her mother was a housewife from Kyoto and her father was an American physicist. Her mother died when Waters was 20 and her father died when she was 29. Apparently his death “triggered the crisis that led to your writing” (I got this at http://www.kyotojournal.org/kjselections/waters.html ). So, the uncle maybe had something to do with her past. It is also a way to seque to the uncle’s “sweetheart” and the father’s rather mathematical reasoning apropos mourning (I love this):

“In a dispassionate voice, Saburo's father explained that the amount of energy you have is limited, just like your food, and that when you love a sick person you have to make the choice of either using up that energy on tears or else saving it for constructive actions such as changing bedpans and spoonfeeding and giving sponge baths. "In the long run, which would help your uncle more?" he asked.”

It alludes to the aloofness of the astronomer and also neatly ties up the end, when Saburo must care for his father.

I’m not sure about the fear; it could be emotion towards his father…no idea…

The text is obviously not mundane in the sense that it’s boring; otherwise, it wouldn’t have this effect. I agree that it elicits emotional responses; this isn’t exactly my reality, but I certainly empathized with the character. Perhaps we all have a relationship or situation similar to this, or we could be very similar to Saburo or his father...

[Tracey L]

I liked this story too actually. I agree with what you said - that Uncle Kotai was placed in the story to set a mood. He seems to be Saburo's father opposite- he lived a shorter life which he was able to enjoy, which a woman mentions when she says "at least in his short life he was never thwarted", hence his role is probably is one to highlight the longer and less happier(?) life. (The story says that he was not allowed to fight in the war because he was barred from glaucoma... I dont know if fighting in the war was something he wanted..)

Hmm.. as for the quote on page 6, I dont really know what to make of it in terms of what exactly he is afraid of, but it seems like to me that Saburo is afraid being kind of left up in the air. An sudden end perhaps, without the chance of actually showing his emotions, and this he shows when he says that he "dreaded an onset of naked emotion, had pushed it off to the future when he would be better prepared, but never, he realized now, had he considered the possibility of its not happening." I really liked this and other quotations in the story just because something about them was so real, something which many can relate to in some way or another.

[Bryan Chiou]

I like the phrasing of the question, "What is the deal with Uncle Kotai?" In response to the p.6 quotation, I actually cannot say either that I have a clear idea of what that fear is of. But like Tyler said, even though we don't have a clear grasp on the significance of some of the things in the text, the text does clearly elicit strong emotional responses. I liken this effect to "To the Lighthouse." Woolf's work is similarly mundane--it has to be when half the book is about people talking, painting, taking a walk and throwing frisbee or something. But undeniably, "To the Lighthouse" is extremely powerful because it touches on our subconscious with very human issues. I think "Rationing" may well have a very similar effect if we read it in this light

-Bryan

[Tyler Halpin-Healy]

Hrm, maybe mundane was the wrong word, I suppose normal is more fitting. But for me this mood goes beyond the basic meaning of normalcy, and brings forth more of an expectation, which should be part of normalcy anyway. Expectation that things would march on as they are now, yet the sense of expectation I get from Saburo is not one of the tedious march forward, but expectation of how he and his father will end.

[Michael Mirochnik]

It does seem strange that Uncle Kotai plays such a brief role in this story, and that he is mentioned after his death only to help describe Saburo. As random or strange that this may seem, Waters is trying to establish a profound idea. She writes that at the age of thirty, Saburo was “a handsome man, with something of his Uncle Kotai lurking about the lips…But unlike his uncle, Saburo did nothing in excess, not even banter” (8). This establishes Saburo as embodying both excitability—representative of his uncle—and stoicism—representative of his father. Saburo’s uncle and father are diametrically opposite in their life span, marital status, participation in the war, way of life and philosophy. Saburo is a reconciliation of these two men’s ways of life.

This reconciliation is what makes this seemingly mundane story effusive. Without Saburo’s embodying characteristics of both his uncle and his father, we wouldn’t get the emotional display that Saburo gives us when he start’s touching his sleeping father in the hospital: Saburo reach[ed] out with one finger and touch[ed] his father’s hands…the physical contact dissolved some hard center of logic within him” (14). Thus, by touching his dying father, Saburo is able to escape from the stoic part of his character and move closer to the emotional one. However, the story ends with Saburo saying, “‘Father…I’m not good at saying fancy things.’ His throat closed up again, and he sat helpless” (15). Therefore, there is still stoicism prevalent in Saburo, and it feels that even though he is the reconciliation of his uncle’s and his father’s philosophies, Saburo rations his logic in exchange for emotion and emotion in exchange for logic, just like his family had to ration food, which ultimately prevents him from revealing his true emotions to his father, making the story come to a pretty upsetting, yet touching ending (at least for me).

[Elisabeth Fabila]

Precisely Tyler, I think that is what these past short readings have been about...how powerful emotion and profound meaning could be found in ordinary, human interactions. I really liked the presence of Kotai in the text. I think it serves two purposes: one, his uncle is an extension of his mother, and so I think Saburo's resemblence to Kotai brings out the part of Saburo from his maternal side. Second, I think Kotai is a contrasting character to Saburo's father who is self-restrained, modest, and an old academic-very opposite of Kotai. And yet, these two sides make Saburo, to a great extent, who he is.

I was also puzzled by Saburo's constant fear. I couldn't quite name the source of it...all I know is that is stems from the relationship with his father. Later on, I also think he wonders if doing so is necessary. Now that I am thinking of it, I wonder if Saburo is having trouble making sense of the dichotomies within his family...wondering if he can ever bridge the divide between him and his father and also between the binary aspects of his childhood.I mean, his mother was affectionate, and expressive while his father was not. His mother fulfilled his needs for affection, and his fulfilled his need for knowledge.

The imagery Waters uses in the story seems to capture this idea well. "Saburo thought of the railroad they were drafting at work its parallel ties never touching, yet exquisitely synchronized, committed in their separateness as they curved through hill and valley. That, he was comfortable with. That, he could do" (11). The part of Saburo's character that is like Kotai is what separates him from his father. At the same time, he and his father move along through life in harmony. In the end I think Saburo finally wants to embrace his father and all he has passed onto him but time and habit have prevented him from knowing how to...maybe I am reading into it too much-but it is a possibility.