Snow Country Quotes

In the novel Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, alcohol plays a big role throughout the entire book. The substance and the act of intoxication increase the physical relationship between Shimamura and Komako. However, Komako is the only one who drinks throughout the book. Shimamura in turn has to care for her actions and becomes responsible for Komako’s safety. Throughout the entire book, there was only one incidence when Shimamura took a drink.
Komako is a party entertainer, a geisha, and what do people at parties like to do? Drink. In the flashback when Shimamura meets Komako for the first time, she enters his room at the middle of the night drunk. Komako had just come from a party and is so drunk she is unable to function properly; “She was weaving from side to side, he could tell, running …show more content…
Komako is still young and she does not know the limits of her body. This is crucial due to the fact she is drinking so much that her motor skills are down the trash and her brain is still developing. This is the first time the reader is told about the fact Komako drinks recklessly. The reader was given the impression Komako was an innocent girl, one who is seeking the path of becoming a geisha. This can be supported due to the fact she cries for Shimamura's help when becoming so drunk or it can be contradicted because she is foolish for being such a drunk. Komako had not become a geisha yet, but she is drinking much heavier than one who should be, on and off the job. Komako mostly drinks when she is entertaining a group; however, she does drink off the job. It is common for her to come home drunk;