On Depravity And Solitude In Ango Sakaguchi’s Literature From The Perspective Of Character Image

As a famous Japanese writer after World War II,Ango Sakaguchi is the leader of Buraiha.After the war,Japanese society was thrown into a state of confusion and despair.In 1946,Ango Sakaguchi published On Depravity.The slogan "I deprave because I am living" as he flaunted became popular throughout Japan for a while,colliding seriously with the traditional mainstream ideas in Japan.In June of the same year,he published the novel The Innocent(Hakuchi),which was reputed as "a paradigm of Japanese postwar literature",and became a flag bearer,as famous as Osamu Dazai,of the Buraiha,a Japanese postwar new literature school.The novel Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees,published in 1947,makes his literary thoughts and works more widely known to the public.In this paper,the author,combined with Ango Sakaguchi’s life experience,focuses on Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees and The Innocent,analyzes the character images in these two works,and explores the core idea of Ango Sakaguchi’s literature works,namely "depravity and solitude".There is a sharp contrast between the simple and blank-minded greenwood bandit and the beautiful and cruel beauty in character in Ango Sakaguchi’s masterpiece Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees.The author thinks that the three different spaces of "mountain village","city" and "returning to the mountain village from city" represent the process in which the greenwood bandit understands and returns to solitude.The work explains that only when Japan is degraded to an "absolute solitude" can the thoughts in the postwar Japanese society be redeemed.In The Innocent,the simple,pure the innocent girl free from the influence of the secular world forms a sharp contrast with Ezer’s "elite" image.The solitude that no one can understand and the compromised reality makes Ezer degenerate into an "innocent girl".Combining with Ango Sakaguchi’s On Depravity,we can read between lines his thought that "the extreme depravity is nirvana".The origin of the "depravity" and "solitude" thought in Ango Sakaguchi’s literature can be explored from two perspectives: the era he lives in and his family background.The lack of love in his childhood,the betrayal of his first love,and the confusion of the postwar Japanese society are the main causes of Ango Sakaguchi’s thought.Compared with other contemporary writers,such as Osamu Dazai,although his literary thought is labelled as "depravity" and "solitude",it is of positive significance as it emphasizes the idea of striving to survive.The essence of the "depravity" and "solitude" awarenesses in Ango Sakaguchi’s literature is to realize "depravity" through "solitude".Only in this way,can the Japanese society be saved.