"Japan, is like a young woman who thinks too much of herself. She's
             bound to get herself in trouble"(17). Undying love, devotion and passion
             are some of the themes you can discover in Gail Tsukiyama's novel, The
             Samurai's Garden. The coming together of two distinctively different
             cultures and how the differences caused a great deal of turmoil. This novel
             contains all sorts of themes but a very common one would definitely be
             loneliness. All the characters share some type of loneliness in their
             Throughout the novel Stephen, a young man who is sent away from his
             family in China due to his disease, Tuberculosis, to live with his
             grandparents in Japan and be cared for by the servant of the house, Matsu.
             Stephen says, "I hated to leave my family and friends, even though I hadn't
             been allowed to see them. I felt lonelier than ever"(4). A few sentences
             later, he states, "In some ways I can't help thinking my time in Tarumi
             will be a quiet resembling death." In both quotes, he is showing that he is
             dreading the journey because he knows that he will be lonely. In the
             previous quote, Tsukiyama's reference to the word "quiet" is extremely
             powerful because she relates it to loneliness and death, which is not the
             first thing most people think of when they hear the word.
             When Stephen first arrives on of the first things he notices is the
             loneliness in the village: "This early autumn there didn't seem to be
             anyone else here, just me, Matsu, and a complete, white silence"(9).
             At first when Stephen is presented in Matsu's life, Matsu is
             a little put off and by only speaking to him when it was necessary which
             also shows that he's also the 'distant type'. As the story moves forward
             Matsu seems to slowly warm up to Stephen. Seemingly from Stephen's own
             loneliness and sufferings, that Matsu can relate to which then shows us his
             compassion, as well as his excitement and determination he brought to ev...