Point of View

Sweet Bean Paste is written from a third person omniscient point of view, following Sentaro Tsujii’s life as he struggles with depression, forms a friendship with Tokue, and works at Doraharu. The author chooses to employ this lens in order to grant the reader access to Sentaro’s internal thoughts and emotions while challenging the validity of the character’s viewpoints. Throughout the novel, Sentaro ruminates on “his state of wretchedness” and struggles to find meaning in his life (48). While he does not always confide his emotions or events from his past to other characters, the reader is able to empathize with the shame, guilt, and depression that he vocalizes in his internal sphere. However, Sukegawa upends the validity of these thoughts, through the third person lens, by giving narrative focus to Tokue’s belief that the purpose of life is to experience the...