In the late 19th century, the Meiji era in Japan paved the way for the Japanese to drift from their traditional values ​​towards modernizing values Western. The influence of Western powers had a significant impact on Japan's traditional ideals. Western influence had transformed Japan into a modernizing nation, allowing the loss of traditional practices. Soseki Natsume expresses his views on this transition to modernization as a loss of Japanese identity through a variety of characters in the book. His intention in creating Kokoro was to project the message of Japan beginning to lose its sense of identity due to the influence of Western powers. In the novel Kokoro, Natsume expresses Japan's loss of identity and the efforts to preserve its existence within the character of K. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay K symbolizes Japan's traditional identity through its efforts to follow its Buddhist straight path. K is presented as a spiritual Buddhist who has completely succumbed by abandoning materialized ideals. Buddhist beliefs are about being “concerned with the experience of Enlightenment and are generally not overly interested in the physical world” (Structured Practices). This representation of Buddhism followed by K is why it represents traditional identity. This can be seen through the narrator's description of K's personality: "Without any manifestation of bad conscience, he began to follow his beloved 'true path' with the money that his adoptive parents had sent him" ( Natsume 129). In managing his adoptive parents' money, K had neglected their wish to go to college to become a doctor and instead used the money for the purposes of his spiritual well-being. K had decided to ignore his parents' wishes in order to pursue his own divine being. He had believed that “scholarly knowledge was not his only objective. What was important, he said, was that he become a strong person through the exercise of his will” (Natsume 134). Abandoning his parents' wishes represents the strong identity that K believed in, regardless of their beliefs. Furthermore, K's contradictions with his parents' wishes symbolize Japan clinging to its principles of identity regardless of the temptations of Western influence. K's actions of holding fast to his spiritual belief won over his parents' influence on his progress throughout his education. Although the traditional sense of identity is expressed within K, he, like many others in Japan, has fallen victim to Western values. K was presented in the novel as a man struggling to fulfill his spiritual path; however, once he got to know the girl who hosted him, Ojosan, he felt more comfortable with her interfering with his spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, this feminine distraction presented through Ojosan is expressed when “K and Ojosan were then alone in the house. I could only be amazed at this” (Natsume 141). Through K and Ojosan being alone in the same room, he began to break down his personal barrier that represents traditional identity. The idea of ​​Buddhism, which was followed by K, is to abandon living entities to pursue enlightenment. Not only had K been distracted by the presence of a woman, but he had fully indulged in temptation by falling in love with her. A character describes his meeting with K as: "K, in a heavy manner, confessed to me his anguished love for Ojosan" (Natsume..