An Artist of the Floating World Lesson Plan

Discuss the parallels between Sasaki and Kuroda. What happened to Sasaki? What happened to Kuroda?

Sasaki was once Moriyama's star pupil. As Ono explains, the best students are more likely to find things to critique in their teacher’s work. Readers are not given the full explanation of what happened to Sasaki, but we know he began to diverge from Moriyama's direction, was ostracized by the other students, and left the villa empty-handed without a single one of his paintings. From that moment on, Sasaki was known as “the traitor.”

Kuroda, meanwhile, was once Ono's star pupil. Again, readers are not given a full explanation for what happened with Kuroda, but we...