| It was not long after the reopening of Japan to foreign influences during the latter half of the nineteenth century that a generation of authors emerged intent on reassessing the relationship between the self and society in the light of Western concepts. The consequence for many was a consideration within their literature of values derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition and a considerable number were led to seek Christian baptism. As detailed in the introduction to this dissertation, distinctions can be drawn between the literary treatment of the various dichotomies with which the successive generations of prewar authors of Christian persuasion found themselves confronted, but it is in the postwar era that there emerged a generation seemingly intent on determining in their literature the extent to which questions of faith could, and should, be addressed within a literary environment. It is to the texts of this postwar generation that attention is addressed in this study--and in particular to the literary corpus produced by four authors viewed as representative of this search, Endo Shusaku, Shimao Toshio, Takahashi Takako and Shiina Rinzo.;Whilst locating these works within the mainstream of postwar Japanese literature, an analysis of the literary methodology employed within these texts serves to highlight several motifs and techniques which, though not unique to these authors, nevertheless appear to receive a distinct treatment at the hands of artists seeking to address the perceived opposition between faith and literature. In particular, detailed examination is made of alternative visions of the self as evidenced by these texts and of the literary effects of the consequent considerations of the concept of the doppelganger. As evidence in the study, the four authors in question were influenced to differing degrees by the philosophy of Carl Jung; in the attempt to produce a literature born of a fusion of qualities initially established as binary oppositions, however, all can be seen adopting an approach to the issues raised by their examinations of human nature that bears a striking resemblance to Jungian models. |
