Second Skin
Sayuri stops being a simple girl from a fishermen’s town when she puts on her first silk kimono, “a brilliant blue with green grasses all around the hem and bright yellow flowers across the sleeves and chest”. The author always emphasizes a role which a kimono plays in geisha’s life, calling it “second skin” and saying that it should fit “like a sock fits a foot”.
A Split Peach
Sayuri learns not only how to dance, sing and entertain properly. She finds out unknown aspects from geisha’s life. Soon it becomes clear that every detail in a look of a geisha has its meaning. When a young geisha makes the split peach hairstyle, she may not even suspect how “provocative it really is”. Sayuri makes this hairstyle many times without even thinking about it, but once a man at a party explains her why men find it to be so attractive. “Imagine you’re walking along behind a young geisha, thinking all sorts of naughty thoughts you might like to do to her, and then you see on her head this split-peach shape, with a big splash of red inside the cliff…And what do you think of?” Then Sayuri comes to realization that geisha’s look is an embodiment of all those things which might excite men’s imagination.
The School
Every geisha is supposed to attend the school “a long wood building” where she is taught how to sing, dance, perform and behave. Contrary to Sayuri’s expectations the interior of the school looks “old and dusty as an abandoned house”. The school also has strict rules for everyone to follow and high requirements. This is not the best place because neither teachers, nor students even try to be friendly “teacher Mouse knelt on a cushion facing the class and made no effort at all to look friendly”.
Make-up
A good geisha is not just a source of entertainment for wealthy people. First of all, she is an actress, a dancer and a musician, even “the word geisha really means artisan or artist”. That is why makeup plays an extremely important role in her life. Applying make-up, a geisha creates unearthly look, using “makeup like a mask” which is supposed to show that she in not ordinary woman.
Kabuki Theater
The novel is full of different description of famous Kabuki Theater which is “relatively young art form”. It helps to understand what geishas do daily. For instance, ‘’all apprentice geisha must study dance’’ and ‘’the most promising ones’’ may even become true dancers and take part in plays.
