K and Sensei are key characters depicted in Natsume Soseki's 'Kokoro'.
In a letter (suicide note) addressed to the protagonist "I", Sensei confesses K's suicide and reveals his own intention to die.
This article will explore why these two characters had to face such tragic ends.
{tocify} $title={Table of Contents}Did K Really Commit Suicide Solely Due to a Broken Heart?
K takes his own life in the past narrative of "Kokoro," which is revealed in the latter half of the book.
K's suicide occurs three days after he learns that his beloved Miss Ojosan and his friend Sensei are going to marry.
This betrayal deeply haunts Sensei, who blames himself for K's death.
But is that truly the reason?
Betrayal by a friend and unrequited love—
Were these the only causes of K's suicide?
Here is my conclusion:
I believe the root cause of K's suicide lies in his overwhelming sense of isolation.
Focusing on the loneliness K faced, I identify four key factors:
- Alienation from family (hometown)
- Abandonment of his path (convictions)
- Unrequited love for Miss Ojosan
- Betrayal by his best friend
I believe the sense of isolation stemming from these four factors drove K to take his own life.
Let’s examine these four elements one by one.
Alienation from Family (Hometown)
K and Sensei both hail from the same rural hometown.
K’s family ran a temple, but K was adopted into a doctor’s family.
The adoptive family supported K financially so he could study medicine, but K had no intention of becoming a doctor.
He attended university, accepting financial support from his adoptive family, purely for the sake of studying.
However, one day K revealed his lack of intention to pursue medicine to his adoptive family.
As a result, both his birth family and adoptive family harshly criticized him, ultimately disowning him.
K severed his ties with his family to pursue his path.
He created a situation where he could no longer rely on family support.
Abandonment of His Path (Convictions)
What did K value so highly that he was willing to sever family ties? It was his path.
What is this path? While Soseki doesn’t provide a clear definition, we can interpret it as K’s convictions.
I believe K’s convictions revolved around spiritual growth—living a highly disciplined and stoic life.
Sensei describes K as being even more monk-like than actual monks, which suggests that a life of self-restraint was central to K’s path.
But K ultimately abandons this disciplined path. Why?
Because he fell in love with Miss Ojosan.
When K confessed his feelings for Miss Ojosan to Sensei, Sensei said:
"A person without a desire for self-improvement is a fool."
K replied:
"I’m a fool."
What did K mean by "I’m a fool"?
"I’m a fool for forgetting the path for something as trivial as love..."
Or did he mean:
"I’m a fool, so I might as well abandon the path and live for love!"
Initially, Sensei thought:
("Well, K would never abandon his path. He’ll be fine.")
But then he panicked, thinking:
("But K can be obsessive once he makes up his mind... Wait, could he really be serious about abandoning the path for love?")
In his panic, Sensei rashly decided to propose marriage directly to Miss Ojosan’s mother.
Whether K truly intended to abandon his path remains unclear in the novel. However, it’s undeniable that falling in love deviated him from his ideal path.
For someone as stoic as K, this deviation must have been excruciatingly painful.
Miss Ojosan’s Unrequited Love
For K, the path was his life’s guiding principle and conviction.
But his strong feelings for Miss Ojosan shook those convictions.
Having likely never experienced love before, K didn’t know what to do and sought advice from Sensei.
When Sensei criticized him for straying from his path, K responded:
"Let’s stop talking about this."
K was in a state of infatuation.
However, his love for Miss Ojosan was never realized.
This is because Miss Ojosan eventually married his best friend, Sensei.
What’s more, K didn’t hear this news directly from Sensei or Miss Ojosan—he learned it from her mother.
According to Miss Ojosan’s mother, K seemed to greet this final blow with calm astonishment. When told about the new relationship between Miss Ojosan and Sensei, K simply said, “I see.” When her mother added, “You should be happy for them,” K smiled faintly, said, “Congratulations,” and left the room. Before sliding open the tea room door, he turned back to ask, “When is the wedding?” He then remarked, “I would like to give a gift, but I have no money to do so.”
This is an incredibly sorrowful description.
Soseki’s brilliance lies in how he describes these moments with such detachment.
K’s lack of money was due to his estrangement from his family.
However, K was never someone who cared much about money.
In fact, he once stated that living in austere circumstances was his true intention.
Yet, here he was...
Even though Miss Ojosan’s mother was unaware of K’s feelings,
"You should be happy for them."
How cruel...
We cannot fully comprehend K’s shock from this depiction, but it must have been immense.
Betrayal by a Best Friend
K’s heartbreak extended beyond unrequited love for Miss Ojosan.
Her chosen partner was none other than his confidant and best friend, Sensei.
"Were K and Sensei truly close friends?"
Some may question this, but the text explicitly states:
"I had been close friends with K since childhood."
It’s clear that K and Sensei were childhood friends and best friends.
While K’s perspective on Sensei isn’t detailed, Sensei seems to have harbored significant feelings of inferiority toward K.
"I always held K in awe."
"K was a man with far stronger resolve than I had. He likely studied twice as hard as I did, and he was naturally much smarter. Later, our fields of study diverged, but during our time in school together—both middle and high school—K always outperformed me. I always felt that no matter what I did, I could never measure up to K."
To Sensei, K wasn’t a rival but someone he could never surpass.
Perhaps this inferiority led Sensei to fear losing Miss Ojosan to K.
Unaware of Sensei’s feelings, K sought his advice about love.
He must have never suspected that Sensei had romantic feelings for Miss Ojosan as well.
Thus, when K learned of their engagement, he likely felt:
- The shock of betrayal
- Regret for failing to recognize Sensei’s feelings
This double blow must have deeply hurt K.
In conclusion, K’s deliberate severance of relationships and feelings of betrayal left him with nothing to trust or rely upon.
K lost his family, friends, love, and convictions.
Considering this overwhelming isolation is chilling.
Had K been less stoic, he might have survived.
If only he had realized that it’s okay to stray from the path and that convictions can change...
K distanced himself from others for the sake of his convictions.
But when those convictions wavered, there was no one left to support him.
Overwhelming loneliness.
I believe this is what K could not endure.
Why Did Sensei Feel He Had to Die?
The narrative describes Sensei's letter addressed to "I" as a suicide note, leading readers to believe that the existence of the letter suggests a high likelihood of Sensei's suicide.
But why did Sensei feel compelled to take his own life?
What stands out about Natsume Soseki is his decision to portray Sensei's resolve to commit suicide.
Why didn’t Soseki make K the protagonist of "Kokoro"?
In hindsight, it seems that focusing on K, who experienced betrayal and heartbreak, would have allowed for a deeper exploration of emotional conflict.
After all, who was betrayed and heartbroken? K.
It seems like narrating K’s inner turmoil leading to suicide might have made for a compelling story.
Yet, Soseki chose to focus on Sensei, the one who betrayed K.
This perspective is pure genius.
Why? Because Sensei’s reason for suicide ultimately mirrors K’s: an overwhelming sense of loneliness.
Let’s examine this more closely, step by step.
- Alienation from Family (Hometown)
- Abandonment of Convictions (Path)
- Heartbreak over Miss Ojosan
- Loss of a Best Friend
Alienation from Family (Hometown)
Sensei lost both his parents in his teenage years.
As their only son, he inherited his wealthy parents’ fortune.
However, his uncle appears to have embezzled part of the inheritance.
When Sensei suspected ulterior motives—like his uncle’s insistence on marrying him to his cousin—he eventually discovered the misappropriation of funds.
This marked the beginning of Sensei’s mistrust in people, and he never returned to his hometown.
In short, like K, Sensei had no home to return to.
Abandonment of Convictions (Path)
While K’s convictions centered on spiritual growth and discipline, what were Sensei’s convictions?
The narrative reveals how K’s suicide shattered Sensei’s beliefs.
At the time my uncle deceived me, I became thoroughly convinced that I could not depend on others. While I was quick to judge others as untrustworthy, I still believed in myself. Regardless of how the world was, I held a conviction that I was a fine human being. But K’s suicide utterly destroyed this belief. When I realized I was no different from my deceitful uncle, I suddenly became lost and disoriented. Having grown disillusioned with others, I became disillusioned with myself and could no longer move forward.
This description of Sensei’s collapse mirrors K’s own feelings when his path crumbled.
K likely felt similarly lost and disoriented, as he described in his note with the term “weak-willed and indecisive” (薄志弱行, Hakushi Jakkou).
Hakushi Jakkou: A lack of willpower and the inability to take decisive action.
Ultimately, Sensei and K may have been more alike than they realized.
When their convictions faltered, they both lost their way.
Heartbreak Over Miss Ojosan
Sensei married Miss Ojosan, so at first glance, it may seem that he did not experience heartbreak.
However, while Sensei may not have faced heartbreak in the conventional sense, it is plausible that K’s suicide caused him to lose the ability to feel romantic love for Miss Ojosan.
In the "Sensei and I" section of "Kokoro," there is a scene where Miss Ojosan (now Sensei’s wife) asks him for a child:
“It would be nice if we had a child,” Miss Ojosan said, turning to me. I replied, “Yes, indeed.” But in my heart, I felt no sympathy. At that time, having no children myself, I thought of them as nothing more than noisy nuisances.
“Should I adopt one?” Sensei suggested.
“Not an adopted child,” Miss Ojosan replied, looking at me again.
“We’ll never have a child,” Sensei said.
Miss Ojosan fell silent. When I asked why, Sensei replied with a laugh, “Because it’s divine punishment.”
Reading between the lines, this passage could suggest a lack of physical intimacy between Sensei and Miss Ojosan or even sexual dysfunction on Sensei’s part.
Additionally, Sensei deliberately withheld the story of K’s unrequited love and suicide from Miss Ojosan to avoid tarnishing her innocence.
However, it seems this secrecy caused Sensei emotional pain:
In my heart, I felt sorrow knowing that the one person I loved most in the world did not understand me. It saddened me even more to realize that while I could make her understand, I lacked the courage to do so. I was deeply lonely. I often felt as if I were utterly alone in the world, disconnected from everyone.
Ultimately, Sensei constantly carried the weight of an isolation he could not share with anyone—not even Miss Ojosan.
Betrayal by a Best Friend
When we describe "betrayal by a best friend," it’s important to acknowledge that Sensei was the one who betrayed K first. Still, Sensei also experienced the loss of a best friend through K’s death.
It seems likely that Sensei never anticipated K’s suicide.
If K had confronted Sensei before deciding to end his life, the story might have taken a drastically different turn.
Sensei reflects:
At that time, I was willing to deceive K if necessary. However, I still had a conscience. If someone had whispered to me, “You are being cowardly,” I might have come to my senses at that moment. If K had been that person, I would likely have blushed in shame before him.
Had K confided in someone about Sensei’s betrayal, it’s possible that neither of them would have suffered such profound loneliness.
In hindsight, the tragedy seems to stem from the fact that this betrayal was shared only between K and Sensei, and the resulting loneliness ultimately led to K’s suicide.
It becomes apparent that K and Sensei fell into the same emotional state, which is the central irony of "Kokoro."
I initially thought K’s death was simply due to heartbreak. But as I reflected further, I realized it wasn’t so straightforward. The clash between reality and ideals—even that seemed insufficient. In the end, I suspected that K, like me, was overcome by unbearable loneliness and acted on impulse. The thought chilled me. I, too, was following the same path K had walked.
This realization highlights Soseki’s genius and leaves a haunting impression.
Sensei followed the same path K walked—a path that inevitably led to suicide.
Sensei harbored suicidal thoughts, just as K did:
I felt deeply the weight of human sin... At some point, I came to believe that instead of being punished by others, I should punish myself. Then, I thought, instead of punishing myself, I should kill myself. I resolved to live as if I were already dead.
Unlike K, Sensei resolved to keep living. However, the death of Emperor Meiji shook this resolve, ultimately leading him to follow K’s path to death.
Why Did Sensei Commit Junshi? What Does Junshi Mean?
As previously mentioned, Sensei harbored suicidal thoughts due to his overwhelming loneliness. However, unlike K, Sensei had a reason he couldn’t die—Miss Ojosan (his wife).
In his letter, Sensei wrote the following:
There were two or three times in my life when I was tempted to follow the easiest path fate had laid before me. But I was always drawn back by my wife. And of course, I never had the courage to take her with me. I couldn’t even bring myself to tell her everything. The idea of sacrificing her life for my fate was too terrifying to even consider.
...At the same time, when I imagined how pitiful my wife would be after I was gone, I couldn’t bear the thought. She had once said, after her mother died, that I was the only person she could rely on in the world. That memory seared itself into my mind. I always hesitated. Sometimes, after looking at her face, I was glad I had stopped. But then I would freeze in place, and she would occasionally look at me with an expression of dissatisfaction.
For Miss Ojosan’s sake, Sensei resolved to live as if he were already dead.
However, one day, Sensei received news that changed everything: the death of Emperor Meiji.
Then, in the height of summer, Emperor Meiji passed away. At that moment, I felt that the spirit of the Meiji era had begun and ended with the Emperor. As someone deeply influenced by the Meiji era, I felt an intense conviction that those of us left behind were nothing but relics of a bygone time.
What makes "Kokoro" truly remarkable, whether Soseki intended it or not, is how it links the loneliness of K and Sensei to broader societal changes. It’s a testament to Soseki’s genius.
Let’s delve into a serious discussion about the Meiji era.
The Meiji era was a time when Japan aimed for modernization. Modernization, in simple terms, was an era striving for “freedom and equality”.
In the Edo period, there was no freedom of occupation: children of samurai became samurai, and children of farmers became farmers. Most people spent their entire lives in the places where they were born.
The Meiji era changed this. With the establishment of the Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo), people from rural areas could study in the metropolis of Tokyo. While private schools existed in the Edo period, only a select few left their hometowns to pursue education.
However, this newfound “freedom” came with enormous risks, one of which was “loneliness”.
Many people left their hometowns and families behind. In cities, individuals from different backgrounds gathered and formed loose-knit communities. This rise in loneliness became one of the major downsides of modernization—a trend that continues even today.
The Meiji era was a transitional period, marking the shift from the old society to the new. Emperor Meiji symbolized this era, and his death signified the end of this transition.
With the societal shift complete, Sensei, overwhelmed by the negative aspects of the new society, realized he could not adapt and chose suicide.
Whether Soseki intended this or simply sensed the nature of the times, it’s a profound reflection of the Meiji era’s transformation.
After Emperor Meiji’s death, Sensei’s suicidal thoughts resurfaced. What solidified his decision, however, was General Nogi’s Junshi.
I read in the newspaper what General Nogi had written before his death. He stated that ever since losing his flag in the Satsuma Rebellion, he had resolved to die and had lived with that thought until now. When I saw this statement, I couldn’t help but count the years General Nogi lived with such a resolution. The Satsuma Rebellion took place in the tenth year of Meiji, and by the forty-fifth year of Meiji, thirty-five years had passed. During those thirty-five years, General Nogi had seemingly been waiting for the right moment to die. I wondered whether those thirty-five years of living had been more painful for him, or if the single moment when he plunged the blade into his stomach had been harder.
A few days later, I finally resolved to commit suicide.
Let us now explore the meaning of "Junshi."
Junshi: A retainer’s act of committing suicide to follow their lord in death.
By Digital Daijisen Dictionary
General Nogi committed junshi upon the death of Emperor Meiji (his lord), so this was indeed an act of junshi.
However, as Sensei realized, General Nogi’s junshi was not a sudden decision. Rather, it was something he had resolved to do long ago. Sensei saw a reflection of himself in General Nogi.
- Sensei resolved to "live as if already dead."
- General Nogi resolved to "die and lived on until the right moment."
Sensei might have thought, "If I’m going to die, now is the time." At the very least, it’s clear that General Nogi’s junshi was the trigger for Sensei’s suicide.
While General Nogi’s junshi was for Emperor Meiji, what was Sensei’s junshi for?
I believe it was for the era itself.
When the Meiji era—a unique period in history—ended, a man who had been shaped and tormented by that era chose to die alongside it. Sensei committed junshi with the era itself.
Did Sensei Truly Die? The Salvation of "I"
Now, this is purely speculative—a dreamlike theory born out of hope.
Because of Sensei’s suicide note, the prevailing view is that Sensei dies in the novel "Kokoro."
However, unlike K, there is no explicit description in "Kokoro" confirming that Sensei actually dies.
All we know is that Sensei wrote a letter in which he stated that he had resolved to commit suicide.
But don’t you wonder?
Did Sensei truly die?
So far, we have discussed how Sensei’s death might have been caused by overwhelming loneliness.
The reasons behind this loneliness can be summarized in four points:
- Alienation from family (hometown)
- Abandonment of convictions (path)
- Heartbreak over Miss Ojosan
- Betrayal by a best friend
In essence, Sensei lost his family, convictions, love, and friendship.
But was Sensei truly "overwhelmingly lonely"?
Couldn’t he have found a new bond?
That bond comes in the form of his connection with the protagonist, “I”.
No matter how coldly Sensei treated him, “I” kept coming back to see him. When “I” read Sensei’s letter, he was even willing to leave his dying parent behind to rush to Sensei’s side.
With the arrival of “I,” Sensei was no longer a lonely person.
Here is a hopeful thought:
What if Sensei didn’t die?
The bond he gained with “I” might have given Sensei the strength to overcome his fear of loneliness.
The only salvation for Sensei may have been the teacher-student relationship represented by “I.” It feels fitting, considering that Natsume Soseki himself was a long-time teacher who mentored many students, including writers like Ryunosuke Akutagawa.
It’s possible that Soseki himself found some measure of salvation in the presence of his students.
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