「高瀬舟」와 <舟>

Abstract

Mori Ōgai resumed the latter years of his literary activities from 『Hanjitsu (半日)』 onwards after his fourteen-year hiatus. Like 『Hanjitsu』 his latter-year literatures highlighted primarily the author’s personal lifestyles. In other words, it can be said that such a tendency was driven by the author’s agony and mental sufferings distresses into being described in the form of novel in the long run. Ōgai did not include in his lifetime collection of literatures 『Hanjitsu』 that deals with family problems and conflicts emerging between family members in a realistic manner and later started choosing not to surface his own personal problems directly in his novels. From this perspective, Ōgai described in 『Takesebune(高瀬舟)』 two important matters associated with him personally: Firstly, the incident of the death of his second son in which his son died not for natural causes but through <euthanasia>, and secondly, the matter of <chisoku (知足)> to do with his personal safety described in 『Hanjitsu』 and 『Majikusu(魔睡)』. Namely, 『Takesebune』 dealt with problems with the author’s personal life and his agony medical deliberation as a surgeon by describing them not straight forwardly but indirectly, in whose process such a literary tool as <boat >plays a figurative role. In conclusion, Ōgai described in 『Takesebune』 vaguely and indistinctively-surfacing doubts or the awareness on certain matters through <boat(舟)> as a literary tool. Despite that the acts of <euthanasia> and <chisoku> are not directly relevant to <boat>, Ōgai’s intent on raising a question and finding out the resolution to it through <boat> is detectable in this novel. Therefore, <boat > in 『Takesebune』 is perceived as a literary tool the author devised deliberately.