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Putting N ational V alues in I nternational C ontext

This article delves into the works of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, the founder of modern Japanese literature, and examines how his stories put national values in an international context. From defamiliarization to the interplay between narrators, Akutagawa's stories showcase a unique blend of Western and Japanese influences.

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Putting N ational V alues in I nternational C ontext

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  1. Putting National Valuesin International Context Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s Stories

  2. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa(1892 — 1927) • Founder of modern Japanese literature • Name: “Son [of] Dragon” • Author of more than 150 short stories • Inherited a mental disease from his mother • Committed suicide at the age of 35 • Father of a famous actor and a great composer • Japan’s most prestigious literary award bears his name

  3. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa:Between East and West • Degree in English literature • Translator of European authors • Interest for history and traditional Japanese literature • Use of Japanese classics and folklore • European style of writing

  4. “Dr Ogata Ryōsai: Memorandum”(1916) • Time: Early Tokugawa (1620) • Place: a remote village • Genre: typically Western epistolary narrative. • Point of view: traditional Japanese. • Subject-matter: a miracle. • Artistic technique: defamiliarization (well-known things made to appear unfamiliar).

  5. The Prohibited “Kirishitan Sect” A Hidden Cross A Christian Samurai (theatre)

  6. Maria Kannon – the Virgin Mary in Disguise

  7. Christian Netsuke

  8. “O-Gin” (1922) • Time: Tokugawa after the 1635 Sakoku Edict. • Place: Nagasaki (mass executions of Christians). • Genre: life of a saint or a martyr. • Validation: names, details, historically cogent facts (ex., fortitude of Christian children). • Narrator: Japanese Christian of a later epoch. Folkloric elements. • Points of view: the interplay between the narrator, the implied author, and the author. • Ending: “an embarrassing failure.” The opposite of what was promised in the Westernized beginning. The triumph of Japan-ness.

  9. “The Story of a Head That Fell Off” (1917) • Time: Sino-Japanese war (1894-5). • Place: China • Type of narrative: third-person omniscient. Interior monologues. Story within a story. • Western influence: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, 1869 (man and history; inner monologue; psychology). • Note: author’s humanism and his take on Japanese nationalism.

  10. War and Peace (Volume I Book 3 Chapter XIX) “On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and unconsciously uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan. Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head. "Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all till now.”

  11. “He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and between them gleamed blue infinity.” “His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it was Napoleon- his hero- but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it.”

  12. “He […] only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to understand it so differently.” “Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. ”

  13. “Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood, suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him.” “[H]is feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father, wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious fancies. The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented itself to him. […] Toward morning all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of unconsciousness and oblivion.”

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