Moonlight shining into such houses is also a great shame. In a list Sei titles “Unsuitable things,” her bias against the “common” comes through again: “Snow falling on the houses of the common people. Though the Empress’s court is a small, self-contained universe in its own right, Sei believes it’s a world that offers more authentic pleasures and prospects than anything the provinces have to offer. They should show them the world and let them become familiar with its ways, by serving as attendants at the palace or other such positions.” Sei’s tangible disdain for such women’s “dull earnest lives” reflects her own change in status once she moves from the country to the court. People of any standing ought to give their daughters a taste of society. Sei views commoners as generally unworthy of being seen or heard: “Women without prospect, who lead dull earnest lives and rejoice in their petty little pseudo-pleasures, I find quite depressing and despicable. Sei sees court life (that is, higher society) as a more valuable form of existence than life as a commoner. By generally describing aspects of court life as delightful and contrasting them with undesirable common life, Sei creates a picture of higher imperial society as inherently worthy of being seen and enjoyed, and of commoners’ lives as rightly disparaged and ignored. This shift is reflected in Sei’s diary, which tends to draw a firm distinction between court life and common life. Once she moves into Empress Teishi’s household in early adulthood, however, the rural province of her birth seems like an entirely different world. Sei herself was born in an outlying province where her father served as a governor.

Specifically, Sei was a gentlewoman in the service of the Empress Teishi, from roughly the year 993 until 1000 C.E. The Pillow Book is a diary composed by Sei Shōnagon, a young woman who served in the imperial court at Kyoto during Japan’s Heian period.

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon