Consider how the narrator’s social class affects his perspective.

Komako is a geisha but not the traditional kind of ancient Japan. She increasingly must rely on sex work to make money in order to to pay for the hospital bills of the man she used to love. Shimamura is a wealthy dilettante who has a wife and children in Tokyo. Komako and Shimamura are polar opposites in terms of social status. Despite this they become involved with each other.