Thematic Studies On Sakaguchi Ango’s Novels In The Context Of War

Sakaguchi Ango(1906-1955),born in Niigata,a snow country along the coast of the Sea of Japan,was a Japanese novelist,critic,and one of the "rogue" writers,and studied Indian Philosophy and Ethics at Toyo University.In 1931,he burst on the literary scene with novels such as "Dr.Wind" and"Black Valley Village",and then,he published a series of literary works,including "The Snow","Pearl","The Idiot",and "Under the Blossoming Sakura Forest".He also wrote and published some literary criticisms,represented by "My Opinion on Japanese Culture","Hometown of Literature",and"The Fallen Theory".In 1955,he died of a brain hemorrhage.Sakaguchi Ango began his literary career in 1931,the beginning year of the so-called "Fifteen Years War"(1931-1945)in Japan,and ended in the tenth year after Japan’s defeat.Because of such context,he began his personal exploration with the background of era and explored the life through literary.It can be said that,Sakaguchi Ango’s literary creation is inextricably linked with the times,the country,and the society.His literature has always maintained a unique style marked by "rebellions"and "decadence"."Rebellion" is manifested in contempt of authority,anti-traditional morality,anti-social order,and opposition to all things that do not conform to human nature,and "decadence"directly and profoundly reproduces the spiritual temperament built up by the personal experience and unique thoughts in the "context of war",thus make the individual Sakaguchi Ango literature.Based on a thorough reading of The Complete Works of Sakaguchi Ango,in this paper,the author extracts four main themes of Sakaguchi Ango’s novels,that is,"hometown loss","historical review","life cognition",and "cultural thinking".These four themes are not only unified in the fifteen-year war context,but also covered in the vast majority of Sakaguchi’s literary works and even more run through his entire literary career.Focusing on these four themes,this dissertation takes"war" as the social context of Sakaguchi’s novels,and conducts a discussion and research on Ango Sakaguchi’s novel mainly by means of social and historical literary criticism,supplemented by methods such as cultural criticism,literary ethics and narratology.In the first part,the author focuses on the novel "The Snow",and discusses the theme of"hometown loss"."Hometown" is not only a major theme of Japanese literature during this period,but also one of the literary themes that Sakaguchi has always followed.Many of his works are related to this theme and also potentially build a unique hometown image.The object of this novel is Niigata,the hometown of Sakaguchi Ango,and also the transit point where Japan opened up new colonial routes.In this novel,Sakaguchi Ango directly revealed the "lost consciousness of the hometown",which is reflected both the impression of Niigata in the traditional and modern perspectives and the lonely and despairing feeling of the loss of belonging.This consciousness,which is not the value judgment and modern consciousness of "Japanese return",but the loss of subjectivity representing with the impact of modernization,changes in human sentiment,and the discovery of a new hometown,reflects the crisis and anxiety of Japanese self-existence.This consciousness exists between tradition and modernity,nature and history,hometown and city,self and the other,and becomes the unique decadent consciousness of Sakaguchi Ango.In the second part,the author focuses on the novel "Pearl",and discusses the theme of "historical review".Historical narrative is an important part of Sakaguchi literature.The Pearl Harbor Incident,as a major historical event in the history of world wars,has been hyped up by the Japanese media,and even the "December 8th Literature" appeared in the literary world because of it,which marks the Japanese literary world in a state of insanity.In contrast,Sakaguchi Ango adopts a variety of narrative techniques to show skepticism and review of media reports,directly reflecting the unique era understanding under the theme of "historical review".He manages to get rid of the control of the historical narrative and the era context,with his keen thinking,historical cognition attitude of skepticism and deconstruction,and the standpoint of individual life.He always maintains himself in the subjective status of "inspector" and restores the literary theme of "historical review" and the right of literary writing into the individual.In the third part,the author focuses on the novel "The Idiot",and discusses the theme of "life cognition".First of all,in this paper,the author reminds the background of the Tokyo Raid,reveals that the small world in the context of the war is a "stupid" society,and then portrays the diverse forms of the so-called "idiot".And then,with the help of literary ethics criticism method,the author sets forth Ize’s ethical choice made in the face of ethical dilemmas,and explores how war can push people step by step into despair and at the same time call for the return of human nature.In the end,the author explains the relationship between Sakaguchi’s modernity criticality and life cognition from multiple perspectives,such as remodeling the image of an idiot,cognition of war and life cognition,and cognition of physical and life cognition.The "life cognition" is not only cognition of the existence of self-life,but also cognition of what life consciousness is,even more a deep thinking of the history,country,system,and other ideologies hidden behind such life consciousness.In the fourth part,the author focuses on the novel "Under the Blossoming Sakura Forest",and discusses the theme of "cultural thinking".Throughout Japanese history,"Sakura" is linked with myth,religion,literature,culture,country,and politics,and has become a major symbol of Japanese culture In this novel,it involves the "Sakura",a symbol of Japanese culture,"bushido",a representative of Japanese cultural spirit,as well as the Japanese people’s mindset,behavioral style,and aesthetic consciousness,therefore,this novel can be regarded as a thinking of Japanese traditional cultural consciousness."Sakura" in this novel means "Terror,restlessness,nothingness,and death",which overturns the traditional impression of the "Sakura".Thus we can see that the Sakaguchi’s original intention of thinking about culture is not to return to tradition after defying reality,nor to reinvent the so-called new tradition,but to break the Japanese tradition,especially the so-called "Japanese Spirit",which was trumpeted in the context of war.He examines the Japanese cultural crisis during this period from the perspective of history,highlights the absolute subjective consciousness,and seeks for the real individual liberation.And the last is the part of conclusion.The author probes into the inherent identity of each novel’s theme with the context of war,national society,literary development,and personal experience though investigating the themes of Sakaguchi’s representative novels.In this paper,the author takes"ideology" as the guide,and summarizes the theme of Sakaguchi Ango’s novels as "hometown loss","historical review","life cognition",and "cultural thinking".It is self-evident that the importance is not the "hometown","history","life" and "culture",but the rebellious thinking embodied in the novels,that is to say,the negative loss,skeptical scrutiny,confirmed cognition,and critical thinking.In other words,under the unique literary theme of Sakaguchi Ango,everything is not the existence of a war context or a war system,not the affirmative and constructive structure,but has the negative and deconstructive connotation,and is also a rebellious and decadent "negative" method.Because of this,these four themes present the unique style of Sakaguchi Ango literature,which is different from the era context and different from other writers,and accurately summarize the profound connotation of Sakaguchi Ango literature.The decadent consciousness expressed in "The Snow ",the ab-heroisation of the warlord Jiuzhu in "Pearl",the metaphor and symbol of "idiot" in "The Idiot",and the rebellious impression of "Sakura" in "Under the Blossoming Sakura Forest" are all reproduced the overturn of the so-called "Japaneseness" and "Japanese spirits".From the beginning to the end,what Sakaguchi insists on is a spirit of suspicion and an independent of self,and what he insists on is also to regard the subjective self as the fundamental goal of the life and the ultimate direction of literature creation.