재난 경험의 경계와 확장- 지역에서 바라본 동일본대지진 -

Abstract

The Great East Japan Earthquake, a multifaceted disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011, was recognized as an event of global history. At the same time, as the slogan “Gambare Nippon” says, it was accepted as a national disaster for Japan. It was also considered a turning point in Japanese literature, and so called post3.11 literature was connected to the world literature. This paper seeks to identify a form of the literature on the Great East Japan Earthquake that neither nationalizes nor abstracts the disaster as a global one. As is well known, the Great East Japan Earthquake is an event with various boundaries and divisions within it, which neither can be summed up in the name of Japan nor in the region of “Tohoku”. From this perspective, this paper will focus on literary works that depict the earthquake and its aftermath through the lens of specific regions, and examine in detail how the disaster and reconstruction are depicted in these works. In the first chapter, I will cover Akira Hodaka's Blue and White, in which the protagonist from Sendai, focuses on the differences in the damage caused by the earthquake. In this novel, what appears to be a difference between Tokyo and Sendai is actually revealed to exist in detail within Iwate Prefecture, or even between the coastal and urban areas of the city. Next, I will analyze Yusuke Kimura's “The Flood of Isa," which is set against the backdrop of Hachinohe, a region that is generally considered less affected by tsunami. This novel has been read primarily as a work depicting a voice of collective resistance symbolized by the Emishi, but here I focus on how, at the same time, the awareness of the concrete materiality of the "no big deal" and "minor" tsunami damage connects the experience of myriad distinct disasters in different regions to that of the earthquake. Finally, I will examine how Atsushi Sato's A Family in the Wasteland depicts the problems faced by the region after reconstruction from the perspective of the protagonist, who lives in Watari-cho. In this novel, reconstruction exists as a reminder of the memory of the tsunami, and the time after the disaster, which cannot be "back to normal," is also connected to the various pains and losses experienced by individuals.