Thinking About the Past

            Have you ever pondered on the past after looking at an old picture?  Did you think about how your life used to be?  In the novel, An Artist of the Floating World, Masuji Ono is the narrator and his mind is always thinking of the past.

            Masuji Ono continually is pondering on the past throughout the novel.  Ono thinks about his youngest daughter Noriko and her failed marriage arraignments, the beauty his pleasure district once had before World War II, the art he had created before he retired, his students, and his colleagues.  Ono is trying to remember the past and make sense of what happen, he also is trying to use the past to help him with the present.  However because he is always thinking about the past, it is as though he is at the bridge of hesitation and behind him is the past he doesn’t want to leave and forward is the future. 

            One example of nostalgia with Ono is the whole issue with his daughter Noriko and her marriage arraignments.  Ono looks back to the past to try and understand what went wrong with her past marriage arraignments so that the same mistake is not made again.  In this situation nostalgia would seem to benefit Ono, to help him understand the present, and not make the same mistake twice.  

On the other hand, according to Noriko, Ono his always moping around.  Which I feel could be because when he thinks of any bad memories he had during the past it will affect him in the present.  This example can be seen as a negative affect of nostalgia.  In this example Ono is moping because he always is pondering the past, and in post war Japan some of the things he did during the war are no longer appreciated.  Also Ono has had bad experiences and losses in the past that will always continue to bring his mood down.  In addition Ono is afraid to adapt to the new changing world because he is stuck in the past.