Yasunari Kawabata won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, becoming the first person from Japan to do so. What symbols or thematic concepts in “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” reflect Japan and its cultural aesthetic? How does Kawabata fuse this aesthetic with those of global Modernism?

How would you describe the ideal of childhood presented in “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket”? How does Kawabata evoke both the joy of childhood and the narrator’s irrevocable alienation from it?

The story is told by a nameless first-person narrator who is observing events from a distance. No background information or context on the narrator’s identity is provided. Based on the narrator’s interpretation of the events, what can you infer about him and his life experience? Use text from the story to support your theories.