Written by students of FC1750.06
at Founders College, York University
Vol.2, no. 3, June-August, 1997
In response to the economic crisis after the depression of the 1920s, many Japanese began to support the military's argument that an emperor-centered political system would unite the Japanese people and imperial expansion would tap the resources of neighboring countries (Hane, 246). They blamed Japan's economic woes on party politicians and on businessmen who believed in "white race" materialism. Masuji Ono in Artist is persuaded to disseminate such an ideology by creating nationalist and militarist paintings. However, he is not to be condemned for his ultra-nationalist activities, but sympathized as a misguided young man who thinks "in all sincerity [that he] was achieving good for [his fellow countrymen" (Ishiguro, 123). He would not have known the true intentions behind the military's self-serving ambitions or the reprehensible consequences of their activities.
Unlike Masuji, who is a victim of political deceit, the unnamed narrator in "The Day" is deceived by the socio-political institutions which Masuji and his generation helped to create. In order to foster militaristic and nationalist values among children, the militarist government presented mythologies as authentic history in revised school textbooks, and teachers coerced students to "develop into courageous soldiers" by punishing "those who questioned the official truth" (Hane, 286). The innumerable young men who volunteered to become suicide pilots were hailed as heroes who had died a "glorious death" for a "holy cause" (Morris, 54)
While he was in elementary, the narrator was asked regularly by his teacher, "If the Emperor ordered you to die, would you die?" His answer was: "Yes, I would die, I would die happily!" (Oe, 106). The boy was taught not to cultivate his mental capacities, but to conform to Shintoism, Japan's indigenous religion. His generation had been told that the Emperor was a divine manifestation of Amaterasu-Omikami, Shinto sun-goddess, and that whatever he decrees is not the wish of a mortal man but the will of the gods.
On August 30, 1945, General MacArthur, "corn-cob pipe in hand," arrived in Japan, an event which marked not only the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Japan but also the reformation of its socio-political structures (Hane, 343). During this period, the values of Western liberal democracies began to replace militarism. As a result, many of the younger men like Kuroda, whom Masuji inadvertently helped to imprison for "unpatriotic activities," openly support the persecution of war criminals. Unwilling to accept the "foreign values " of postwar Japan, Masuji still believes "those who fought and worked loyally for [Japan] during the war called war criminals" and that his son Kenji "died bravely" in battle for the Emperor (Ishiguro, 55-56, 58).
The disillusioned Masuji can only find solace in nostalgia. He frequently drinks with one of his former students, Shintaro, at the only remaining bar in the "graveyard," which once was his pleasure district. "There is something reassuring about going into Mrs. Kawakami's and finding Shintaro sitting up there at the bar . . .," he says, "just as one may have found him on any evening of past seventeen or so years" (Ishiguro, 28). However, as his narrative progresses from October 1948 to June 1950, Masuji begins to re-evaluate his past and eventually admits that "much of what [he] did was ultimately harmful to [Japan], that [his] was part of an influence that resulted in untold suffering for [the Japanese] people" (Ishiguro, 123).
While Masuji finally is able to distinguish between the fact and fiction of his imperial experiences, Oe's narrator valorizes his childhood memories instead. Lying in hospital, he dictates "a history of the age" to his wife 25 years after the war, and at times alters the "present reality" so as to relive the "happy days" of his youth. He refuses to accept that the Emperor, who "swiftly descended to earth to announce the surrender in the voice of a mortal man" on August 15, 1945, has ever lost his divinity. His Majesty is likened to "the national essence itself" and "a ubiquitous chrysanthemum" that "would cover Japan and her people" (Oe, 98-99). He sees the emperor through the eyes of a child.
Although Masuji's willingness to examine critically his past is admirable, he does so not of his own initiative but to ensure the happiness of Noriko, his youngest daughter, who is in the middle of her second marriage negotiation with the Saito family. He heeds his eldest daughter's advice to "take precautionary steps" so that the Saitos will not learn of Masuji's conservative postwar values.
As well, Masuji in retrospect realizes that one of the main reasons for his devotion to imperial Japan was that it offered him a means to become a highly respectable artist and disprove his father's prophecy of him living in "squalor and poverty." At the end of his narrative, Masuji visits the business district which used to be his old pleasure district. He is overwhelmed with hope as he sees that the young businessmen of postwar Japan are driven by the same ambition to accomplish greatness as he once was.
Conversely, Oe's narrator is unable to share Masuji's optimism about the future because of the spiritual uncertainty he faces in postwar Japan. During the first ten years of his life, the Showa emperor was his god, but he died on August 15, 1945. The democratic values of the West, which have instilled a sense of freedom and individuality in him, have created a schizophrenic worldview about this world and doubt about the next. He seeks consolation in the certainty which constitutes his "happy days" and, as a result, eagerly anticipates death. Only in death can he have his tears wiped away by his god, the Emperor himself.
For many people today, imperial Japan is the topic of history books and television documentaries. That serves not only as a reminder of our destructive capacities, but as a lesson of the detrimental effects of thought control. Although both narrators can be pitied and condemned at various stages of their narratives, they should be seen as examples of how easily people can be manipulated when they are disallowed to express their thoughts or to think critically about the information they receive. Even today there are religious and racial wars being declared in the name of some self-serving ideologies, and there are still people who acquiesce to them and are prepared to legitimatize them with any means they can. Perhaps the greatest lesson Ishiguro and Oe have taught us is that their fictional characters reflect Truth itself.
Hane, Mikiso. Modern Japan: a Historical Survey. San Francisco: West View Press, 1987.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. An Artist of the Floating World. London: Faber and Faber, 1987.
Morris, Ivan. Japan 1931-1945: Militarism, Fascism, Japanism? Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Co., 1963.
Oe, Kenzaburo. "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away." Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness. Ed. and trans. John Nathan. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1977.
Illustration by Billy Lo