大江健三郎「アトミック·エイジの守護神」論 - 戦後の自己救済とヒューマニズムをめぐって -

Abstract

Published in 1964, “The Guardian of the Atomic Age” was Kenzaburō Ōe's first book addressing the victims of the atomic air raid in Hiroshima. This thesis deals with not only the issue related to the ways to compensate the victims of the atomic air raid, but also Ōe's viewpoints on the victims by closely examining each character appearing in “The Guardian of the Atomic Age”. “The Guardian of the Atomic Age” features a middle-aged man who adopts boys who have lost their parents during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and has them insured for life. However, ironically, he is later insured by the boys who find out that he has stomach cancer. It may appear that the fact that a ‘middle-aged man’ who visits Hiroshima for the good cause of taking responsibility for atomic bombing victims as an individual turns into having orphan boys insured for life makes him look hypocritical. However, it is also possible to realize that the ‘middle-aged man’ lives life in order to atone for his wrongdoing through his experience as a war correspondent and a self-giving life after the war. In addition, the boys who overturn the commonly regarded images of atomic bombing victims and the ‘journalist’ are another type of atomic bombing victims who try to overcome the realty laid ahead of them with their own morals. Through them, the novel symbolically portrays the people who strive to free themselves from the horrors of war after the war has ended in ways that can not be explained with humanism and morals. “The Guardian of the Atomic Age” is not trying to depict the victims of the atomic air raid as a whole, but rather reveals the images of people living life to self-salvation after the war through Ōe's eyes toward individual victims with experience of being exposed to radiation. And at the same time, his work can also be viewed as a novel criticizing the journalism back then which became part of the entertainment industry, ignoring the existence and reality of those victims.