Symbolism in "The Grasshopper and The Bell Cricket"

The lanterns in the story represents the individuality and personal diversity of each of the children. One child bought their lantern in the store but later discarded it because it was not special: “Each day, with cardboard, paper, brush, scissors, pen-knife and glue, the children made new lanterns out of their hearts and minds”( Kawabata 134).  The narrator is overcome with emotion when he observes the light of the lantern on the children. He sees this as a beautiful moment; in Japanese culture, beauty is also linked with sadness so the narrator also feels a sense of sadness among the beauty.
 In the story Kiyoko, the girl who is wearing a white kimono, displays the innocence of the children. White symbolizes innocence and the name Kiyoko means pure child. This is important to the theme of the story because Kiyoko has completely honest and pure intentions when she comes across Fugio. This helps the reader understand the metaphor of the bell cricket.
Kiyoko is seen as a bell cricket to Fujio. Fujio saw Kiyoko as unique, and she is special to him.  Fujio gave Kiyoko an insect, which, to her delighted surprise, turned out to be a bell cricket. The narrator realizes that the little boy must have known all along that he had found a bell cricket, and he was saving it for that particular girl.The bell cricket is loved and honored in Japan; each cricket makes its own unique song through the cricket's wings and body vibrations. The bell cricket represented a woman who is unique and special. The grasshopper, the other object of symbolism,  represents all of the other women. The narrator implies a grasshopper may seem like a bell cricket, which means that someone who is just average in the eyes of many will be unique and special to someone else. The lanterns cast a light on one another. The light is the name of each other. The light foreshadows their future together; in that moment they belonged to each other.
The theme, or main idea, of the story is that there are many grasshoppers, or just regular people, in the world but bell crickets, or unique people, are rare to find:
“Even if you have the wit to look by yourself in a bush away from the other children, there are not many bell crickets in the world. Should the day come, when it seems to you that the world is full of grasshoppers” ( Kawabata 136).
I think that Yasunari Kawabata’s story had a deeper meaning, for what he was feeling. The boy that was narrating represented Kawabata’s perspective on life. The boy was standing alone to represent the sense of isolation and distance that Kawabata felt. He felt distanced because he was orphaned when he was four, after which he lived with his grandparents.  Kawabata's grandmother died when he was seven, and his grandfather when he was fifteen. After losing all of his close relatives, he moved in with his mother's family. Throughout many works of this writing, he often gives the impression that his characters are surrounded with loneliness and isolation. I believe that the story the “Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” was based upon his emotional insecurity that he felt after experiencing two painful love affairs. These love affairs to Kawabata were turned into the metaphor of the grasshopper.  In 1934, Kawabata wrote that he feels like he has never held a woman's hand in a true romant: “I feel as though I have never held a woman’s hand in a romantic sense[…] Am I a happy man deserving of pity?” In response to Kawabota’s isolated sense of mind, he committed suicide in 1972.

Kawabata, Yasunari. “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” from Collections. Orlando, FL. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 2010. Print