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Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first-person view, tells the story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before World War II. Memoirs of a Geisha is an Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning movie adaptation of the novel of the same name, produced by Steven Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment and directed by Rob Marshall. ...
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Arthur Golden (born in 1956 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is the writer of the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha. ...
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This article is about the literary concept. ...
Arthur Golden (born in 1956 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is the writer of the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha. ...
For the band, see 1997 (band). ...
Typical nape make-up Geisha ) or Geigi ) are traditional, female Japanese entertainers, whose skills include performing various Japanese arts, such as classical music and dance. ...
Kyoto ) is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. ...
Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
Plot summary
It is 1930 in Japan. Before her mother dies, the main character, Sakamoto Chiyo, and her older sister, Sakamoto Satsu, are taken to Gion by Mr. Tanaka. Satsu is sold to a jorou-ya as a prostitute, while Chiyo is sold to an okiya, a house for geisha. Chiyo meets Mrs. Nitta, or "Mother," the mistress of the okiya. She befriends the okiya's other trainee, a girl named Pumpkin. Shirakara Canal in the Gion district, showing the rear of some ochaya Exclusive restaurants line the streets of Gion. ...
A brothel, also known as a bordello or whorehouse, is an establishment specifically dedicated to prostitution, providing the prostitutes a place to meet and to have sex with the clients. ...
Prostitution is the sale of sexual services (typically manual stimulation, oral sex, sexual intercourse, or anal sex) for cash or other kind of return, generally indiscriminately with many persons. ...
An okiya ) is the lodging house a maiko or geisha lives in during the length of her nenki, or contract. ...
With her unusual blue-gray eyes, Chiyo is to train to become a geisha, but is constantly antagonized by Hatsumomo, the resident (and only profitable) geisha of the Nitta okiya. The arrogant Hatsumomo recognises Chiyo's potential and is upset at any hint of competition, with reason -- another profitable geisha would give Mrs. Nitta the leeway to throw Hatsumomo out. Hatsumomo, therefore, does whatever she can to ensure that Chiyo does not get to train as a geisha, including talking Chiyo into attempting to run away from the okiya, and forcing Chiyo to ruin an expensive kimono that had been stolen from Mameha, a rival geisha in Gion who is despised by Hatsumomo. Hatsumomo's plotting results in Mrs. Nitta removing Chiyo from her geisha training, and also causes Chiyo to be in significant financial debt to the okiya. Albino redirects here. ...
An okiya ) is the lodging house a maiko or geisha lives in during the length of her nenki, or contract. ...
An encounter with the wealthy and benevolent Chairman changes Chiyo's luck. They meet when Chiyo is seen looking sad, looking down at the water in the middle of the bridge, mainly because she is a maid and not training to be a geisha at the okiya. The Chairman sees her, and tells her to smile more. He then gives her money to buy shaved ice. After, Chiyo goes to the temple and prays to see him again. Years after, Chiyo wins the eye of Mameha -- the very geisha whose kimono Hatsumomo had forced Chiyo to destroy. Mameha explains to Chiyo that, despite Hatsumomo's beauty and talent, she has never had real success. For a geisha, real success means a wealthy danna, or patron. (A danna was typically a wealthy man, sometimes married, who had the means to support the very large expenses related to a geisha's traditional training and other costs. In Memoirs, geisha are depicted as permitted to engage in intimate relationships with their danna.) Mameha takes Chiyo in as her younger sister and protégé and trains Chiyo to rival Hatsumomo. Chiyo's entrance into apprenticeship is marked by being given a new name: Sayuri. Mameha and Sayuri remain close, even though their relationship is tested after Mameha's Danna, The Baron, after cornering Sayuri in his home, forcefully undresses her and "observes her." However, he does nothing physically and after looking at her, he helps her in into her kimono again. For the island in Scotland, see Danna, Scotland. ...
Mameha orchestrates a bidding war between rich patrons for Sayuri's mizuage (interpreted in the narrative, erroneously, as a deflowering ceremony), and Sayuri's final price is more than enough to pay off her entire debt to the Nitta okiya, propelling her into a career as a successful geisha and earning her adoption by the mistress of the okiya. This causes a rift between Sayuri and Pumpkin because Pumpkin had also hoped to be adopted, an idea that Mrs. Nitta discards after adopting Sayuri. The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ...
Over the years, Sayuri becomes a successful geisha, cultivating many businessmen and officials as clients. Meanwhile, Hatsumomo's reputation and status as a geisha begin to decline, while Sayuri becomes more and more successful. Mameha and Sayuri plot to drive Hatsumomo to her breaking point, and Hatsumomo is thrown out of the okiya after attacking one of her customers in a rage.
During Sayuri's encounters with the Chairman, she finds it impossible to get close to him as she desires. Instead, she finds herself constantly being pushed to be with Nobu, the Chairman's dear friend and partner. Although danna-geisha relationships are not depicted as permanent, though some last for many years, Sayuri knows that men in Gion do not become the patrons of geisha who had been with their friends or coworkers: being with the otherwise likable Nobu would bar Sayuri from the Chairman, permanently.
The outbreak of World War II, a theme foreshadowed by growing reference to the Japanese military, represents, structurally, another major challenge for the heroine. When the geisha districts are closed, many of the women are sent to work in the factories, a fate they are shown to fear terribly because of the frightening coughs and stained skins of the factory women. Nobu, however, finds a safer place to send Sayuri. Even so, her successes are quickly made irrelevant, and her physical beauty is tarnished by manual labor and malnutrition. However, these times also make Sayuri reflect on her life. She realizes that she could have managed, even if she had stayed in her childhood village. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
When Gion is ready to reopen, Nobu comes to see Sayuri, asking her for a favor. She must help entertain a minister in the new government to give Nobu and the Chairman help in recovering their business, which was damaged during the bombing of Osaka. Nobu's words make it clear that he expects to become Sayuri's danna as soon as he is again wealthy enough to do so. Although Sayuri is grateful to Nobu and otherwise fond of him, she has serious misgivings. For other uses, see Osaka (disambiguation). ...
It is not until she puts herself in an undesirable position that Sayuri's desire to be with the Chairman truly frees her to pursue her own destiny. The Chairman then offers to be her danna and after talking with Mother, decides that Sayuri is to retire from being a geisha as well as the Chairman becoming her danna. For a while, she accompanies the Chairman to a resort house he had purchased, and entertains him, with Mameha occasionally visiting and joining in. Sayuri later moves to New York and starts her own teahouse, where she lives out the remainder of her life.
Controversy After the Japanese edition of Memoirs of a Geisha was published, Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel. The plaintiff asserted that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity, if she told him about her life as a geisha due to the traditional code of silence about their clients. However, Golden listed Iwasaki as a source in his acknowledgements for the novel. Mineko Iwasaki Mineko Iwasaki (岩崎峰å Iwasaki Mineko), born Masako Tanaka (born November 2, 1949 in Kyoto), was Japans number one geiko (geisha) until her sudden retirement at the age of 29. ...
In 2003, Golden's publisher settled with Iwasaki out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.
Iwasaki later went on to write her own autobiography, an account vastly different from Arthur Golden's novel, published as Geisha, A Life in the US and Geisha of Gion in the UK.
Inaccuracies In Memoirs, the mizuage is depicted as a deflowering ceremony, in which the geisha had physical relations with a client for the first time. However, this type of coming-of-age was practiced by the courtesans called oiran. A geisha's coming-of-age involved changing from apprenticeship to adulthood, outwardly signified by a change in hairstyle and clothing. An oiran preparing herself for a client, ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Haronubu (1765). ...
See also Typical nape make-up Geisha ) or Geigi ) are traditional, female Japanese entertainers, whose skills include performing various Japanese arts, such as classical music and dance. ...
Mineko Iwasaki Mineko Iwasaki (岩崎峰å Iwasaki Mineko), born Masako Tanaka (born November 2, 1949 in Kyoto), was Japans number one geiko (geisha) until her sudden retirement at the age of 29. ...
Shirabyoshi Shirabyoshi (who adopted their name from the dance that they performed) appeared at a time when the social structure in Japan was starting to break down. ...
Tayu were high-class courtesans in Japan. ...
An oiran preparing herself for a client, ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Haronubu (1765). ...
References - McAlpin, Heller. Night Butterflies; Memoirs of a Geisha. Arthur Golden. Los Angeles Times 30 November 1997. Pg. 8.
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