The Power of "Seventeen Syllables"

As Mrs. Hayashi tries to explain to her daughter Rosie in “Seventeen Syllables,” in a haiku one “must pack all her meaning into seventeen syllables only” (Yamamoto 9). Even though writing haiku becomes Mrs. Hayashi’s means of expressing herself, it is also a source of confinement and madness for her and her loved ones.

Writing haiku keeps Mrs. Hayashi from interacting with her husband and daughter. Rosie is of the Nisei generation, and she is more fluent in English than Japanese. Mrs. Hayashi writes haiku in her native tongue, so Rosie does not fully comprehend her mother’s work. Rosie’s father has no interest in his wife’s writing. At night, he now plays solitaire, since Mrs. Hayashi is not around to “challenge [him] to a game of flower cards” (Yamamoto 9). He only grunts when Mrs. Hayashi says “You know how I get when it’s haiku” (Yamamoto 11-12). Writing haiku is only confined to Mrs. Hayashi’s interest in her own household and alienates her from her family. It is also a means of confining her to her Japanese heritage and not fully assimilating into American life.

Seventeen syllables also serves as a metaphor for Mrs. Hayashi’s stillborn son, “who would be seventeen now” (Yamamoto 18). Even though the son would have been seventeen, he never got the chance to live and is forever confined to being an infant. The syllable is a short unit of speech and mirrors this brevity of life. Writing haiku was also Mrs. Hayashi’s “baby,” because of how devoted and proud she was of her work. Matthew Elliot describes Mr. Hayashi’s destruction of his wife’s Hiroshige prize as an act of silencing, but it can also be viewed as Mrs. Hayashi watching her son being born dead all over again.

Mrs. Hayashi’s haiku alter ego, Ume Hanazono, only lasted three months, like a haiku lasts for three lines (Yamamoto 8-9). But during those three months, she is obsessed with writing haiku and talking about haiku with like-minded people, such as Mr. Hayano and Mr. Kuroda. Obsession is often conflated with madness. Even Mr. Hayashi tells Rosie, “Ha, your mother’s crazy!” when Mr. Kuroda brings Mrs. Hayashi’s first prize for the haiku contest (Yamamoto 17). Mr. Kuroda’s visit is the last straw for Mr. Hayashi. He has been letting his annoyance evolve into anger over three months. When Rosie tells her father that her mother is delaying her return to the tomato fields because Mr. Kuroda is visiting, Mr. Hayashi erupts “like the cork of a bottle popping” (Yamamoto 17). His wife’s obsession has finally driven him mad and his act of violence upon the Hiroshige print is carried out without regret or consideration for how it might affect his wife and daughter.

Through Mrs. Hayashi’s story, Yamamoto has demonstrated the power of seventeen syllables to empower, but also to disrupt and destroy.