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Kōyō's techniques is that the former views his characters through the eyes of his principal character Tokio, while the latter observes his characters, all the time, in a manner similar to a storyteller, totally detached from them. The diction of Kōyō is polished but his character Kwanichi lacks animation, in marked contrast to the passages quoted from Futon on pages 49 and 50. Why is it that Kwanichi in Konjiki Yasha is the hero of his story in name only, like a puppet, and fails to have the reader understand his sadness; while on the other hand, Katai in Futon was able to bring out his hero's despair, enabling the reader to share in Tokio's experiences? Was it not because Kōyō's descriptive efforts were evenly placed in his rhetoric from start to finish? In other words, Kōyō's diction is smooth, but too monochromatic. Katai's endeavors, however, were concentrated on describing natural feelings of Tokio. It can be further noted that Katai's minute-by-minute observations of Tokio were solely carried out to convey to his readers what is taking place in Tokio's mind in situations similar to those that were affecting Kwanichi. The significance of Futon written in narrative form is that it enabled Katai to describe successfully the details of his characters as if they were living in our own world. In this respect, Katai's friends, Tōson and Doppo, at this stage of their careers, could not fully achieve the lively characterization of modern men because they, like Kōyō, failed to reveal their characters' subconscious feelings to their readers.
From a historical perspective, the significance of Futon lies in its contribution to westernizing Japanese literature, which was initiated by Shōyō in his Shōsetsu Shinzui in 1885, and followed by
