Since Chiyo was found looking for her sister she has been taken out of geisha lessons and is sentenced to life as a maid. She will forever be indebted to the oikya because of all of her wrongdoings. She decides she has nothing to lose at this point so she sneaks out to meet her sister but is turned in and returned buy the neighboring oikya who finds her in their courtyard. She is beaten and shunned. In time she learns that her mother has passed away and that her sister ran away from her house and has married back in their hometown. Chiyo has no resources to draw on so she decides she will be obedient and work in the oikya for financial stability. Granny, the oikya elder, falls to a sudden death as well in this portion of the reading so the town of Gion shows up for the visitation where Chiyo meets Hatsumomo’s arch enemy, Mameha. Mameha seeks to take Chiyo out of servitude and mentor her to be a geisha. It is at that moment that Chiyo has a life ahead of her. She trains at a Geisha school, shadows Mameha, and learns how to act the part. Chiyo has a prosperous life ahead of her as she is about to be debuted as Mameha’s “sister”.
Although male dominance is still an overlaying theme in both of my novels, Memoirs of a Geisha reveals an underlying theme as well. To Western culture, the art of being a geisha seems demeaning. It is almost like a glorified prostitute; females serving men for money. But, in Memoirs of a Geisha being a geisha is a well respected career path. Yes, men are still in control and men are still using the women, but to a woman a geisha is powerful and beautiful because she can make a man “swoon”. Because Japanese culture is so different from ours it is hard to grasp these activities as normal.
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