It's been more than one hundred years since the Meiji period of Japan. Though they might live in the same place at the same time, they cannot share one heart, one kokoro. Though they have set off the right flags and won love, even so, their thirst cannot be quenched. For example, take the narrator, Sensei, K, and Okusan. Through this story, Natsume is communicating that humans are fundamentally lonely creatures and have no choice but to reflect on how they will live cast out from the collective, understood by no one. Perhaps you could also describe this as the establishment of individualism. We accept it as very much a matter of course. But we, who live in the modern world, are already used to such loneliness. Natsume calls this helpless feeling loneliness. Neither love nor friendship will cure your isolation. You may find someone who understands you, but that person will never be your friend. You may set off all the right flags, but you will never get your happy ending. This is a story that depicts individuals isolating themselves from the world, a story of the truth that there is nothing the world can do to help you. The central theme of this work is most certainly not the romantic entanglements that compose the love triangle, but a rather poignant story about distrust.
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