In Sensei's testament, the secretive man reveals the past events that made him lose all hope in himself and the rest of humanity. Immediately, the narrator leaves his father's deathbed and rushes to Tokyo. As the family awaits the father's death, the narrator receives a long letter from Sensei at the end of which he states that he is going to die. However, the next time the narrator is called back home due to his father's illness, it turns out to be much worse, to the point that his father goes through a terrible physical decay and seems moribund.

Soon afterwards he returns to Tokyo and finishes his university education, all the while talking with Sensei. When the narrator receives word that his father's illness has worsened, he leaves Tokyo for his provincial hometown, where he finds that even though his father actually seems rather well there is a painful distance between him, an educated and urban young man, and his family. Although Sensei gives the narrator a great deal of advice on life, he is hesitant to reveal the details of his own dark past from which he has acquired those lessons, which frustrates the student's curiosity and earnestness to learn. For reasons that he himself is not completely aware of, the narrator is drawn to Sensei and so while staying in Tokyo for his university he often visits Sensei and his wife at their quiet home to talk with Sensei. GradeSaver, 22 June 2015 Web.In early 20th century Japan, the narrator, a university student, meets an enigmatic and aloof older man whom he calls Sensei. Next Section Kokoro Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Lin, Alexander. Through the tortured and melancholy character of Sensei, Natsume showed the alienation and guilt that he himself felt personally from his separation from the traditional ethics of Japan, along with his struggle to find a solution. In his novel, Natsume deals primarily with the psychological and ethical problems dealt with by the Meiji era intellectuals, who had to reconcile their Confucian dedication to the public with the individualism imported from the West, and the new unabashedly individualistic tide of thought which had emerged even while Meiji was alive. That year, two years had passed since the death of Emperor Meiji, under whose rule Japan saw its first period of intense modernization, and in two years Natsume himself would be dead.

Kokoro (こゝろ), written by the famous Japanese author Natsume Soseki, was published in serial form by the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, for which he worked, in 1914.

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