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Futabatei's Ukigumo. In the case of the Kenyūsha writers, who succeeded Shōyō, their most praiseworthy qualities lie in the polish of their descriptions, and in their elegant diction, although we must concede that this phase of discipline should be in order when writing a literary work, although this is only one aspect of the efforts that are expected from a writer. The writers of the Kenyūsha were, however, primarily concerned with art and purifying processes and had taken little interest in the raw materials of life. At this juncture Katai was able to fill in the deficiencies of the Kenyūsha writers by taking preference to frank transcriptions of his experiences over a generalized and an objective presentation of a situation. In doing so Katai found in Futon a new way to narrate a story, as we have already observed in Chapter IV. Katai's narrative techniques no longer required unnatural plot devices of the traditional modes of telling a story, rather Katai made his story develop itself according to its natural sequences. As a result, these characters in Futon reflect, on their part, situations of the early period of the twentieth century of Japanese society, bringing the reader back directly into the inner lives of his characters without any interventions in the way of explanation or commentary on the part of the author, and uncovered the most intimate thoughts of his characters, those which lie nearest unconsciousness. It can be observed that Katai succeeded in Futon by describing his main character Tokio's experiences with Yoshiko, thereby bringing into focus one of the fundamental problems of our lives: the fact that ambition, sensitivity, and the striving for fulfillment which these entail, are very natural and are inhibited not by nature, but by the unnatural morals of society.
