Reading A Souvenir of Japan I was struck by the major similarity in style to The Cathedral. Also using pronouns and the lack of names to distance the audience from characters. Carter keeps you removed from all the characters through out the story only allowing what she calls “a shadowy glimpse in the mirror” of the characters.
Her piece embodies this phrase through out in ways, first in removing the human element with many of the characters, starting with the grandmothers on the second page. Describing them as basically a cigar store Indians. She talks of them as stationary things to be mover or changed.
“They kept her very clean. They covered her pale cotton kimono with a spotless pinafore trimmed with coarse lace and she never dirtied and never moved.” (Carter, pg. 267)
Although the grandmothers take up such a small section of the book the way they are talked about is very telling in the story and the way she speaks of Japan as a removed observer. She follows this up with a story of her and Taro and right from the beginning she does the same thing she did with the grandmothers, removing his humanity. In the first sentence describing him she completely removes him from humanity comparing him to a god, giving him godly characteristics while removing him from the human plane. She puts him on a different level from herself and the grandmothers she puts him in an untouchable position above herself and that is made clear by her description of him through out the book as she continually talks of him in ambiguous or conflicting terms.
These two seemed to be the more glaring examples to me but there are many more to be found though out the story.
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Ann, I think you've identified a key component to this story: how the narrator gives us "glimpses" of characters rather than making them seem more "human." I think your statement about the narrator's description of Taro, that "she completely removes him from humanity comparing him to a god," is a good example of this theme.
Should you choose to revise this piece, you could look for more specific examples in the text that support the narrator's ability to "remove characters from humanity." It might also be interesting to think of reasons why she might be doing this...what about her situation, relationships, etc. might cause her to feel so removed?
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