Unmasking the Real Traitor: the Problem of Bringing War Criminals to Self-Recognition in Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Japanese’ Novels
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Kazuo Ishiguro’s first three novels deal with the question of the moral responsibility of individuals who were swept in the current of a great historical crime. He is a stern moralist who exposes the subterfuges and self-deceptions of those who actively supported and aided colossal crimes against humanity. By using ‘unreliable’ narrators, Ishiguro reveals the psychological mechanisms Ogata-san and Masuji Ono, the central male characters of his first two ‘Japanese’ novels, adopt to erase, revise, and reconstruct their past actions and the consequences thereof. The two elderly men recall their pasts and dwell on them in a way to minimize their criminality and reinstate themselves in their own favor. Ogata-san of A Pale View of Hills tries to justify his having exhorted innocent youths to fight bravely for the Japanese empire and emperor. He does this by telling himself and others that though directed towards a disastrous end, the values he inculcated are far superior to the values that became prevalent after the war, which he sees as causing disorder and disunity in latter-day Japan. Masuji Ono of An Artist of the Floating World, who was a prominent painter of rousing war posters before and during WWII, begins with pretending that he is not aware of any reason he should feel embarrassed about his past or for people to look askance on him. But events in the book, including negotiations surrounding his daughter’s marriage, and the attitudes of his daughters and sons in-law, make it impossible for him not to face his past. But even after making the difficult admission of the criminality of his past activities, he succeeds, through much subtle mental maneuvering, in reinstating himself in his own eyes as a figure of importance whose activities were courageous and effective even though misdirected. Ishiguro seems at the end rather inclined to leave him there, but as we have come to see through his various masks very clearly, and found him repulsive, the moral verdict is inescapable.
Abstract
Kazuo Ishiguro’s first three novels deal with the question of the moral responsibility of individuals who were swept in the current of a great historical crime. He is a stern moralist who exposes the subterfuges and self-deceptions of those who actively supported and aided colossal crimes against humanity. By using ‘unreliable’ narrators, Ishiguro reveals the psychological mechanisms Ogata-san and Masuji Ono, the central male characters of his first two ‘Japanese’ novels, adopt to erase, revise, and reconstruct their past actions and the consequences thereof. The two elderly men recall their pasts and dwell on them in a way to minimize their criminality and reinstate themselves in their own favor. Ogata-san of A Pale View of Hills tries to justify his having exhorted innocent youths to fight bravely for the Japanese empire and emperor. He does this by telling himself and others that though directed towards a disastrous end, the values he inculcated are far superior to the values that became prevalent after the war, which he sees as causing disorder and disunity in latter-day Japan. Masuji Ono of An Artist of the Floating World, who was a prominent painter of rousing war posters before and during WWII, begins with pretending that he is not aware of any reason he should feel embarrassed about his past or for people to look askance on him. But events in the book, including negotiations surrounding his daughter’s marriage, and the attitudes of his daughters and sons in-law, make it impossible for him not to face his past. But even after making the difficult admission of the criminality of his past activities, he succeeds, through much subtle mental maneuvering, in reinstating himself in his own eyes as a figure of importance whose activities were courageous and effective even though misdirected. Ishiguro seems at the end rather inclined to leave him there, but as we have come to see through his various masks very clearly, and found him repulsive, the moral verdict is inescapable.
참고문헌 (12)
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