| Description |
In this study we shall focus upon Soseki, the pioneer of a culture. That culture is the turbulent, transitional milieu of Meiji japan. Simultaneously violent, complex and dramatic, the Meiji era represented Japan's awakening from its centuries-old feudal isolation. There was reform of antiquated and injust feudal institutions but, ironically, the modern system introduced corruption end; contradiction of its own. With the steady influx of Western customs, this generation was forced to reconcile the conflict of rapid modernization with long-standing traditional values. At times, the clash between the old and the new-feudal end modern-alienated those who were not willing to thoughtlessly acquiesce to the apparent inconsistency. Soseki willingly embraces this contradiction and reorientation as artistic material; to this volatile cultural basis he applies his own insistence that a novel be a "faithful account of an individual's life or his fate." His novels are realistic (sometimes even journalistic) treatments of individual Japanese men and women struggling to locate their places in the contusion of Meiji japan. It is a fiction of fierce individualism. The works we will discuss--And Then, (Sorekara), Mon (The Gate) and Kokoro ( The Heart) - feature protagonists who are unconventional dissidents in the Meiji turmoil. They face isolation and loneliness, most often as a direct result of their custom-defying choices. In short, Soseki's characters are, like their creator, children of Meiji Japan - compelled to justify their individuality amid the kinesis of the period.; Soseki declared that "art begins end ends in self-expression." This statement, more than any other, typifies Soseki's work in And Then, Mon, and Kokoro. In these later novels, it is as if Soseki's life and his literature are inseparable entities. In each of his lonely protagonists - Daisuke, Sosuke, and Sensei - we see shades of the master himself. Soseki is, after all, a product of this same Meiji Japan. he knew loneliness, he knew disillusionment, he knew contempt for social norms - he was an individual. Soseki's alientated, guilt-ridden protagonists are his literal offsping, his art, his "self-expression." |
