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Literature Final Exam
The postwar era in Japan did not usher in an era of radical change in traditions. As a nation known to be keen on preserving their cultural heritage, Japan managed to keep its traditional views intact, particularly in terms of gender. The Japanese has long engendered a patriarchal society, where men enjoy a superior status compared to that of women. The perceived inferior status of women in Japanese society is a recurrent theme in literature, embodied by novels such as Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse and Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata.
What prevails between the two novels is the theme of gender in Japanese society. In Japan, men have the image of being superior to that of women. Men have held positions of power and authority throughout the history of the Japanese people, particularly in the image of emperors, generals, shoguns and samurais who have enjoyed a great sense of nobility entitled by their social position. Women, on the other hand, have served as tools of sexual desire in Japanese society. While that view may have declined recently due to the trend of globalization, it is nevertheless unavoidable for the Japanese to think of women as objects for marriage and sexual relations. Black Rain has exemplified that fact very well, as shown in the parental responsibility of looking for a suitable partner for a daughter observed by foster parents Shigematsu and Shigeko in raising their niece Yasuko. They have expressed concerns that their failure to find a husband for Yasuko due to black rain exposure caused by the atom bomb dropped over Hiroshima could become a large failure to abide by their duty. Yet, what both Shigematsu and Shigeko did not regard is the fact that Yasuko is her own person capable of making decisions for herself. The fact that Yasuko do not possess the freedom to choose the person who will love her unconditionally constrains her greatly, despite that fact that such did not emanate well in the story due to the focus on her possible (and later confirmed) sickness from black rain exposure (Ibuse, 1965).
As for Snow Country, it is obvious that Shimamura only sought to treat his loneliness and despair in his immersion in work through departing Tokyo to go back to the geisha that smitten his attention – Komako, only to go back on the trains thinking about another woman named Yuko despite the companionship and presence of the geisha. Shimamura is an example of a man who thinks that women are objects that would make him happy as he sought for alienation from his life in the city. The relentless reference to the aesthetic features of the women in the story characterized the attitude of Shimamura towards women. Despite being a married man, Shimamura craved for the attention of Komako whole thinking of Yuko while he is on the train with the former. Given that the story portrays Shimamura as a man with technically three women on his mind, it shows that the image of women provided in the story is only that of a derogatory stance of sex and companionship, not as agents of genuine, heartfelt romance and sincere feelings (Kawabata, 1952).
Overall, both novels have sufficiently showed that women in traditional Japan do not enjoy the degree of freedom experienced by men. The fact that judgment towards women finds basis on aesthetics, social status and their healthy issues tend to deviate from the notion of love being unconditional. Verily, the concept of unconditional love is not present throughout the two novels. What prevails from the two novels is the fact that women are subject to the various whims and caprices of men, sometimes coming out as a form of consumption.
What is “community” in the postwar era?
The postwar era notion of community espoused by the two novels is one of alienation in the midst of retaining Japanese traditional cues. Devastation ensued throughout Japan when it lost the Second World War. Defeat has shattered the strong sense of nationalism and pride the Japanese people has expressed throughout their war campaign, causing most people to consider social withdrawal while having to deal with traditional norms towards rebuilding the nation. In Black Rain, high regard towards kinship ties has urged Shigematsu and Shigeko to acquire custody of their orphaned niece, Yasuko. Both Shigematsu and Shigeko agreed to extend the practice of parents on finding a suitable partner for their daughter in taking care of Yasuko as she grew up. Yet, Yasuko became alienated towards her foster family and society as a whole due to the hardships she had to undertake in looking for a partner deemed suitable for her by Shigematsu and Shigeko. Yasuko became alienated from her foster parents because she had no other choice but to cooperate with their efforts to find a suitable partner for her, as doing otherwise would prove disgraceful for her part by becoming an ingrate. At the same time, the norms of society defining the inferiority of women and the need for their romantic life to find interference from their parents has made Yasuko further disillusioned in her situation, especially as rumors that she is suffering from black rain exposure have become rife towards realization, making her situation even more difficult for her (1965).
In Snow Country, Shimamura is the main character showing alienation towards society. Having the desire to abandon his work in Tokyo and his marriage, Shimamura sought to detach himself from reality by travelling to the mountains to meet the geisha Komako once again in a hot spring resort he visited previously. The interaction between Shimamura and Komako eventually became an uneasy one towards failure, as the former has revealed to himself his shallowness towards matters involving genuine romantic love. Instead, what Shimamura thought of as his need for love in the midst of detachment eventually emerged as his desire to fulfill his sexual fantasy. In effect, Shimamura kept in his mind the image of Komako as a highly appealing woman, particularly through the prevailing descriptions of her aesthetic beauty noted throughout the novel. The same manifested when Shimamura, despite the presence of Komako, still had the manners to look at another woman on the train named Yuko, as his curious looks at her remarkably highlighted his interest. The fact that Shimamura is a married man, to add to previous instances of admiring women in a sexual manner, makes him a relentless pursuer of sexual passion from the different women he has encountered – a fact aggravated by the loneliness he felt in struggling to get by his work and bland life in Tokyo. Social alienation, thus, is the key defining notion of community in the story, for Shimamura wanted an escape from his daily routine using his sexual desire for women as his main channel (Kawabata, 1952).
Overall, community within the notion of Japanese society during the postwar period has the defining feature of alienation, as provided by the two novels. Both the preservation of traditional Japanese norms and the need for social withdrawal due to the pressures of urban environments have induced the main characters towards alienation from society, which is reminiscent to the postwar attitude of Japan on its reconstruction phase after its disgraceful defeat during the Second World War.
Works Cited
Ibuse, Masuji. (1965). Kuroi Ame (Black Rain). Japan: Kodansha.
Kawabata, Yasunari. (1952). Yukiguni (Snow Country). Japan: Iwanami Shoten Publishing.
