Mama Teacher and Her Husband

At a small school outside Tokyo, Machiko works to keep both an educational enterprise and her marriage alive. Her husband Sakurō depends on her money and resents the dependence. A young teacher offers sympathy, while a wealthy mother returns each week to the place where her child once played—and died.

Kishida Kunio turns this uneasy household into a sharply observant three-scene drama. Lessons, medical examinations, donations, and everyday school business frame intimate arguments about duty, freedom, jealousy, and love. Characters explain themselves with apparent confidence, only to expose contradictions in their own desires. A planned journey and an unexpected letter bring their competing claims to a decisive encounter.

First published in 1930, Mama Teacher and Her Husband presents the tensions between practical strength and emotional vulnerability through spare dialogue, charged silences, and unsettling reversals. This complete English translation retains the cast, stage directions, and all three scenes, with concise notes on historical expressions and textual details.