“The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen” by Graham Greene, was written in 1965 and touches upon several very important issues such as: egocentricity, lack of experience leading on to “arrogance”, criticism to the previously mentioned characteristics, the concept of “observation”, and the extremely important and different role that a narrator can play in a literary work. This creation definitely changed the style of writing literature.
The story tells the readers about a group of eight Japanese gentlemen and a young British couple. All of them are in a restaurant and the narrator is there too, but not as a character. The Japanese seem to be very polite and always smiling, they are eating. On the other hand, we have the couple talking about the book that is about to be published by the girl, who is a “writer”. Nevertheless, she is a bit self-centred, arriviste and extremely egocentric. She thinks she has a powerful sense of observation. Her fiancé carefully listens to her trying to “open her mind” a little bit, but she does not seem to listen, really. She does not seem to observe either, she just talks about herself, herself, and herself. It is rather shocking to see a girl who is so stubborn at her age. She has probably not had too much experience in life, so she may think that literature is “a piece of cake”, when it is not.
Concerning the narrator, he plays a very important role. He describes the entire scene, but from within the story. As the couple talks, the narrator criticises the girl and he makes the story quite richer in terms of narration since this is a new technique in writing. Apparently, the narrator has a lot of experience in literature since, very sarcastically, he criticises everything the girl says. He criticises her “power of observation” mainly. He kind of “demonstrates” his real power of observation when he says that all the Japanese wore glasses, but one, for example.
Nonetheless, not everything is criticism. We may think that the author of this short story wants to pass his experience down to this young woman.
The story tells the readers about a group of eight Japanese gentlemen and a young British couple. All of them are in a restaurant and the narrator is there too, but not as a character. The Japanese seem to be very polite and always smiling, they are eating. On the other hand, we have the couple talking about the book that is about to be published by the girl, who is a “writer”. Nevertheless, she is a bit self-centred, arriviste and extremely egocentric. She thinks she has a powerful sense of observation. Her fiancé carefully listens to her trying to “open her mind” a little bit, but she does not seem to listen, really. She does not seem to observe either, she just talks about herself, herself, and herself. It is rather shocking to see a girl who is so stubborn at her age. She has probably not had too much experience in life, so she may think that literature is “a piece of cake”, when it is not.
Concerning the narrator, he plays a very important role. He describes the entire scene, but from within the story. As the couple talks, the narrator criticises the girl and he makes the story quite richer in terms of narration since this is a new technique in writing. Apparently, the narrator has a lot of experience in literature since, very sarcastically, he criticises everything the girl says. He criticises her “power of observation” mainly. He kind of “demonstrates” his real power of observation when he says that all the Japanese wore glasses, but one, for example.
Nonetheless, not everything is criticism. We may think that the author of this short story wants to pass his experience down to this young woman.
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