 Gatten believes the tale to begin farcically, but says the characters grow out of their initial stereotypes to gain enough "psychological depth" to solve their difficulties, and the tale becomes a "realistic treatment of Heian sexual roles".Rohlich says that Torikaebaya is "clearly not meant to be comic", despite the plot deriving largely from "ironic misunderstandings" about the switch, "all else" in the tale, such as the relationships and the pursuits are "familiar stock-in-trade" from the "monogatari" genre.