The Critical Consciousness In Kaiko Takeshi's Novels

Kaiko Takeshi(1930-1989)is one of the most prominent post-World War II Japanese writers.In October 1957,he published his work-Panic(Panniku)—in Neo-Japanese Literature(Shin Nippon Bunkaku),thus earninig him great praise from the Japanese literary critic Hirano Ken and attention from the field of Japanese literature.Then,in December of the same year,he also published another two short stories,Giants and Toys and The Emperor's New Clothes(Hadaka no osama).The latter won him the 38th Akutagawa Prize.It also helps to strengthens Kaiko Takeshi's status in the very field.While creating his own works,unlike the ways of seeking into the inner part of the character,Kaiko Takeshi extended his attention to the Japan society as a whole and attempted to reveal various aspects of contradiction and darkness,for which he is called "social writer" in the field of Japanese literature.His works is mostly characterized by the strong critical consciousness.Panic and The Emperor's New Clothes are two representative works that are produced out of the without following his traditional way in literature creation.It is safe to say that these two novels by him play a vital role in the whole area of Japanese literature and have a lot to do with the main theme reflected in his later works.That is why the present article would focus on the very representative two and discuss about the critical consciousness in Kaiko Takeshi's works.Studies on literature works produced by Kaiko Takeshi started from the 1980s in Chinese scholars of Japanese literature,which was evidently much later than that in Japan.According to the previous research collected by Chinese CNKI and Japanese CiNii,it is found that,for scholars either from Japan or China,existing studies of relation either just engage in discussion on a single piece of work by the very author or in comparison with another piece.However,though mentioning of the very two pieces of works is found in studies on his works of the earlier period,hardly could such research has ever been found as discussion is made based on the two together—Panic and The Emperor's New Clothes.Besides,as for the critical consciousness reflected in Kaiko Takeshi's novels,some existing studies just refer to it just with a few words in a rather simple way but no detailed analysis could be found.Hence,with the method of text analysis from both inside and outside of the text itself,the current study is aimed to explore further into the critical consciousness of his works with the very two novels mentioned as the center.It is hoped that the present study could help to further and enrich the knowledge about works of Kaiko Takeshi.The present study is composed of four chapters.In Chapter One,at first,life experiences of Kaiko Takeshi and his style in literature production are generalized with a view to uncovering the reasons behind the critical consciousness in his works and his main characteristics in literature creation.Then,the significant role of Panic and The Emperor's New Clothes in Kaiko Takeshi's literature production as well as in Japanese literature is analyzed and connection between the two is noted.In the following three chapters,in order to reveal the mentioned critical consciousness,analyses from three perspectives,following an order of micro to macro and from outside to inside,are made,including criticism of the humanity,criticism of the secular society and criticism of the political system.Firstly,humanity is the nature of human beings and there is difference between the good and the evil.Greediness and selfishness are manifestation of the evil side of the humanity.Typical characters can be found in both of the two novels.Through analysis of the characters in each one,their greediness and selfishness can be disclosed in different aspects,thus showing Kaiko Takeshi's criticism about the nature of human beings.Secondly,it is inevitable to be immune to any effect of the secular society for whoever leads a life in it.In this sense,the evil side in humanity aforementioned has quite a lot to do with the surroundings of the whole society.Panic and The Emperor's New Clothes respectively show money worship and the obliteration of subjectivity.In the former,money worship,as a kind of social consciousness,resulted in corruption in bureaucrats,disorder in economy and even the failure in struggle against the mouse plague.In the latter,subjectivity of the children were totally deprived of by the school education and family education of the very society then and there.Therefore,both of the two novels,to some degree,expose problems existing in the Japanese society and express the relative criticism.Lastly,connection and relation is made between the problems appearing in the Japanese society and its political system.It is believed that political system,as the superstructure of the whole society,is closely related to what is going on in the social reality.In other words,troubles or problems occurring in the real society,to some extent,could be attributed to the political system in the exact country.Criticism of the political system is reflected respectively from accusation of the political institution and monocracy in the two novels.In Panic,not only corruption in the prefecture political institution could be found,but also the internal complex relationships could be seen together with the staff's negative attitude towards work.In The Emperor's New Clothes,criticization of the emperor's despotism is realized by a fairy tale,and also dictatorship of the liberal democratic party is uncovered by delineation of the real society where the governments collude with the businessmen and regime changes happen often.