Let’s try one more exercise by way of review of what we’ve discussed so far.

(Exercise) Read the following text. Explain why the narrator says “[my] dignity would not allow me to nod [to him] sycophantically” in the underlined portion.

In packs of children, like packs of dogs, a single strong member can make all the rest cower before him. After Shoda went, leaving me unchallenged, I took advantage of everyone’s obedience to lord my authority over them, and acted as the neighborhood bully. I have forgiven myself though, as this was the most sensible thing to do at the time.

(…)

Then a family-owned embroidery and gold-leaf business moved into the home due West of ours, and their son, Tomikoo, became my classmate. He was a totally untalented child, but since he was well-spoken, two years older than me, and strong, he immediately became the top bully. Not only could I no longer wield my authority, [my] dignity would not allow me to nod [to him] sycophantically, and so I became the sole outcast.

[NAKA Kansuke(1), Gin no Saji(2), 1913]

(Sample answer) As explained in the first part of the text, the narrator is a neighborhood bully who deals with all his classmates as a high-ranking “superior.” Here we should note that “superior” is a character, not a style. In other words, although his position as “superior” was in reality subject to change, it was assumed that it wasn’t. When the stronger boy Tomikoo entered the school, the narrator could not ingratiate himself, because (as one can imagine) this would have been awkward for the classmates who had, up until them, treated the narrator as a “superior,” and it would have been embarrassing for the narrator. Therefore, the narrator could not deploy an “inferior” character in front of all his classmates.

What do you think? Naka Kansuke’s Gin no Saji has been lauded as a work that portrays the world of children through a child’s eyes; the first part used for the question is from the 43rd paragraph, while the second part is from the 49th. This work was written 100 years ago, but thinking back on my own childhood, the world of children was complicated, and contained various issues of “dignity.” As we saw in the above, within such issues of “dignity” are areas related to character, and as we have seen (part 23), we do not learn these things as adult members of society, but rather we are aware of them from a very young age. Actually, we discussed some boss-types who, like the above neighborhood bully, fell from power (parts 51 & 52: From “high” to “low”?). In the novel Aru Onna, over the course of the long sea voyage, Mrs. Tagawa feels anguished at the threat to her position as “boss” posed by the young, beautiful Youko Satsuki. In sumo, a Yokozuna will sit out the tournament or retire before allowing himself to be demoted; in other words demotion is not possible for him. These examples are fundamentally identical to the narrator, who says “[my] dignity would not allow me to nod [to him] sycophantically.” In understanding this, it would be wrong to use “class” and “gender,” as Mrs. Tagawa was a refined lady, but the above narrator and the Yokozuna are not. Nor would the value of age be useful, as Mrs. Tagawa was elderly, but the narrator was young, and the Yokozuna has no specific age. It is only convenient to use the perspective of “status” when talking about “superior” and “inferior” characters. The provision that I stated before, that “it isn’t necessary to designate a value for each perspective,” comes from this kind of thinking.

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