exams which will allow him to go on to higher education and to a better job.
A growing influence on Japanese society is seen in American culture. The students learn English in class, almost a prerequisite today for doing business. American culture is apparent in the music the mother and eldest son listen to--Audrey Hepburn from My Fair Lady.
Class distinctions and tensions are evident in the way the educated tutor insinuates himself into the family, which bows to him not because he is of a higher class but because he is more educated. Education represents a class distinction that has real power in this society. He has what the family wants for their son, and so the family (except for the older son) abases itself in various ways to this individual in order to get him to impart his learning to the younger son.
The family is isolated in the city shown in this film. The family lives primarily in a circumscribed social area encompassing the building in which they live, the school to which their
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