quality:corruption, structural:reformatting
Beauty

This novel, like others Kawabata wrote, vividly depicts the psychic cost of aesthetic appreciation, as well as its effect on minds susceptible to beauty. The protagonist of the novel is often taken out of the real world and into the dream world of his own mind after witnessing beauty. Furthermore, this beauty makes the oblivious to the world around them: e.g. after observing Yoko's eyes in the train, or seeing the Milky Way during the fire at the end of the novel. This beauty often leads to Shimamura acting cold or cruel, as when he calls Komako a "good woman" after observing her in the moonlight.

It can also be noted that all depictions of beauty in the novel include an element of sadness: loneliness in the beauty of nature, sadness in Yoko's beautiful voice, wasted beauty of Komako, as well as the wasted effort in an act of love.