大江健三郎「走れ、走りつづけよ」論 -米国のヒロイズムと日米関係のゆくえ-

Abstract

Ōe Kenzaburō published “Run, Keep Running” in November, 1967 when the Vietnamese War was worsenig. The central characters of this short story are ‘I' with a insane grandfather, his ‘cousin’ who also descended from the grandfather's blood, and American glamour actress Penelope Mandarin. It is a story mainly developed by them. With this work, it is described about the world situation at the same period in the 1960's including the reference about the nuclear and the scene that Penelope visits Vietnamese battlefield to console the U.S. soldiers. This paper considered it from a new viewpoint including a symbol of ‘I' that has not commented proactively in past studies. As a result, it was clarified that Penelope is a symbol of the American nihilistic heroism and ‘cousin’ is a symbol of Japanese in the 1960's. This paper revealed Ōe's eyes toward not only the Japan-U.S. relationship in that time, and his cognition was various. Ōe had doubted the heroism in the United States, and also paid attention to the Japan-U.S. relationship with antinomy and the nuclear issue. In the late 1960's, Ōe asked reader and Japanese society whether they continue adhering and depending on the United States or Japan would aim at substantial independence from it in future. Furthermore, Ōe performed awaking reader to recognize the threat of nuclear, through the wards of ‘cousin’.