In Praise Of Shadows Analysis

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki uses “In Praise of Shadows” to relate to the audience by talking about the multitude of differences between traditional Japanese aesthetics and modern Western inventions. He shows how these differences affect the past culture, causing it to fade away with the introduction of innovations that are more useful, beneficial, and efficient. Tanizaki explains the deeper meaning and significance of the simplest things. The author explains how there is a significance to everything whether through placement or the way it is displayed. This allows the audience to think about the underlying meaning which they might not have done in the past. Tanizaki relates to his audience through the structure of his arguments, the strength of his imagery, and the connection of the past and present generations. The author manipulates his many favorable views of his personal recollections and his outlook on every detail to get the audience to understand his perspectives and rethink their own. Repetition is used several times throughout the book to get the main idea across to the audience. He informs the audience of his one-sided viewpoint of how Japan should be; one example where he …show more content…
Many places influence other cultures which has both its upsides and downsides, but Tanizaki feels obligated to remind the audience of past aesthetics. The author is mainly informing the audience of his insights on what Japan should be versus what it's like in his time period. Tanizaki portrays many of his thoughts on past traditional Japanese culture, but doesn't include the many negative events of past aesthetics which shows the audience that In Praise of Shadows is mainly the authors’ one-sided view on both traditional past Japanese aesthetics and modernized western inventions and how he believes it is destroying any trace of Japan's past