Ume Hanazono

Ume Hanazono is Tome Hayashi’s alter ego in Yamamoto’s “Seventeen Syllables.” Mrs. Hayashi dons this penname once she begins writing and publishing her haikus in the local newspaper. Ume, who takes over Tome’s body after dinner, is a “muttering stranger who often neglected speaking when spoken to and stayed busy at the parlor table as late as midnight scribbling with pencil on scratch paper”. Through Ume and her haiku prowess, Tome is able to win relative notoriety for the haikus she publishes in the newspaper. Ume is significant in this short story because Ume is free in ways Mrs. Hayashi is not. Ume did not go through the embarrassment of having a lover whom she could never marry, the stillbirth of a baby boy, and a rushed and unfulfilling marriage to a man she does not really love. Ume is free from these misfortunes, and her separation from those tragedies allows Tome to harvest her creative energy. By creating some distance from the harshness of her own life, the creation of Ume allows Tome “a room of her own” (or at least a “mental frame of mind of her own”) in which she is free to create.

Rebecca Cuffley