Oe Kenzaburo’s Literary World

This paper focused on kenzaburo oe’s novels,his essays and lectures and combined the longitudinal novel with horizontal essays and lectures via close reading.By combing one works with a series of works with the theme and by placing a single works in series,the author did overall discussion the series of novels,sought for individuality and universality,combed and studied kenzaburo oe’s literary world.In more than half a century,the theme and style of kenzaburo oe’s works has changed constantly,but his creation path is still traced.In this paper,kenzaburo oe’s creative activities have been divided into four phrases in terms of his creation style,characteristics of themes and transition of his literature road,based on the basis of others’ research.This paper interpreted,identified and expounded the creation of kenzaburo oe’s,based on the time order of the four periods.The first phase,from "the wonderful work" in the 1950 s to "A Personal Matter" in the first half of the 1960 s,can be regarded as the dominant stage of existentialism.In this phrase,kenzaburo oe’s literature has experienced the transition from confusion to new life,which is the process of orientalizing and localization of western existentialism.The second phase,from the latter half of the 1960 s to "The Game of Contemporaneity" in the late 1970 s,was a period in which kenzaburo oe’s literature took care of personal crisis and human crisis.The third period,from the 1980 s to the end of the 1990 s "Somersault",kenzaburo oe’s literature came out of the trough of the 1970 s,focusing on the death and rebirth of all human beings.The fourth period is the literature of the new century,and kenzaburo oe’s focused on from attention of all human beings to the restore of the heart of the individual,regroup and move on.According to the four periods,this paper will be divided into four chapters.The first chapter,"existence anxiety",is composed of three parts,in the first part,the short stories "Lavish Are The Dead" and "Someone Else’s Feet" with the theme of existentialism are discussed.The original short shows the two sides of the existential " the futile outside world" and "inside of happiness".The second part is kenzaburo oe’s postwar literature.He showed two viewpoints about war literature,one is to describe daily life of youth living in the end of the war,based on the perspective of young such as "Prize Stock " " Nip the Buds,Shoot the Kids ",the other one is to describe the life several years later of the post-war in the view of the college students’ life,such as "sheep","after the jump to see","fight today" and other series.This section also includes the juvenile literature.The author thinks kenzaburo oe expressed his view of war in the perspective of description of how the war hurt the children and formed the cruel adult ceremony.After the success of the short story,he began to create long novel,but suffered a critical criticism.The third part mainly discussed kenzaburo oe’s works centered on “our times and " A Personal Matter ".kenzaburo oe returned to reality choice from " The sexual man ","political man".He went through a process from confusion to the newborn.He combined the free choice of western and existentialism which claims others are the hell with the idea which claims human being should face the reality,adapt to society and coexist with society harmoniously.He found a new way by combination between existence of people and objective reality.The second phase is the content of chapter two.The theme of death through the first phase,which is filled with the fear and expectation of death,has transited to a broader concern to explore how to live in the crazy life and relieve all mankind as the disabled eldest son was born and lived together in real life.The author summed up kenzaburo oe’s works as "wake up risk consciousness" in this phrase,which are mainly reflected in two aspects,one is how nationalism and the emperor system attract and impact on the people including the author.This influence not only played an important role in the political level and already rooted in the spirit.That is to say,kenzaburo oe demonstrated this with its own.This topic has been attracting kenzaburo oe,from " Seventeen " and "political teenager’s death" etc.to the works in this phrase such as "Dad,where do you want to go?","Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness "," The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away " and "monthly man".In this paper the author analyzed kenzaburo oe’s works in details through "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away ".Second,kenzaburo oe’s theme changed from self-redemption to the concern of the threat of nuclear weapons and environmental degradation including "the hidden in the nuclear age","dying whale agent"," The Flood Invades My Spirit " and "The Pinch Runner Memorandum".The author explored kenzaburo oe’s work " The Flood Invades My Spirit " as the center and discuss the top one "The Game of Contemporaneity" as the good medicine prescribed by him for human being.Although "The Game of Contemporaneity" "is not recognized by critics,but there is no denying that this is an important work no matter in terms of artistic ways or theme.The third chapter focuses on the works in the 1980 s and 1990 s.kenzaburo oe literature continued to care for human salvation in the 1980 s,but a big change took place in the technique.In the early 1980 s,his works returned to short stories he is good at.This kind of writing method used several short stories to form a series stories and to reflect the subject from different sides,was successful.Another important aspect of his novel is the decomposition,the simplification and restructuring of the novel "The Game of Contemporaneity"." How Do We Kill the Tree ?" including eight medium-length and short stories,decomposed the important plots in "The Game of Contemporaneity",reaffirmed the theme in "The Game of Contemporaneity" which failed to clearly express."M/T and the Narrative About the Marvels of the Forest" simplified the structure of the story and the narrative method makes the structure of "The Game of Contemporaneity".is more clear.The narrator of Kenzaburo oe’s novels have also changed,after the first-person narrative works "Letters for Nostalgic Years" as the turning point,the third person narration and intertextuality appears in his works in this period and women became the focus of the novels.In the 1990 s,the two works "burning trees" and " Somersault" mainly developed focusing on the issue of new religions.In these two works,he analyzed deeply spiritual emptiness in the contemporary society with "no believers pray" as the main line,and social problem that men on the edge of society,because they could’t get the social attention,in turn,sought treatment in new religion.In this chapter,the author analyzed the whole works of Kenzaburo oe’s from some perspectives,and figured out how to take care of all mankind through literature from the metaphor of "rain tree",symbiosis of crippled childeb and salvation of the soul.The fourth chapter is the literature of the new century,namely the late period of Kenzaburo oe’s literary creation.The view of creation returned to the restore of individual inner from taking care of the mankind.The narrator of most works was an old writer who was with his overlapping novelist.The background was the stories in real-life,he told the stories of the writer and expressed their thought.This chapter is divided into two parts.The first part focused on "the strange two people" and explored how works show the process from restore of individual inner to folly move on of the old man.The second part is on how to continue to tell the hope." The Children of 200 Years" is another science fiction after "The Tower of Treatment".This works gave the children hope that human was saved from violent destruction in a new view." Death by Water" pushed nationalist violence to an extreme,and showed the image of women who never give up in despair.In the last novel " In Late Style ",confronted with natural and man-made threat to human survival,the narrator didn’t give up,lighted up the dark barriers with more hope and realized the transcendence.In conclusion,Kenzaburo oe’s literature is the process in which one never gave up and pursued hope in desperation,for individuals,for society and for mankind.