太宰治:「疎外された者」と「隣人愛」 - 『惜別』を中心として -

Abstract

This study considers an issue of ‘neighborly love’ in the literature of Dazai Osamu which has not been researched up to date, by connecting the issue with ‘alienated persons.’ Dazai had begun to use the word ‘neighborly love’ since 1937 when he began to read the Bible. In the Japanese literature, Dazai seems to be the first writer using ‘neighborly love’ in the biblical sense. However, it can be found that Dazai’s unique interpretation is reflected in such ‘neighborly love.’ ‘A Farewell with Regret,’ a novel written at the time when ‘neighborly love’ began to appear frequently, depicts a form of ‘neighborly love’ which ‘I’ use for the acquaintances, ‘a group of persons without competence in Japanese language.’ For the ‘neighborly love’ used by Dazai, ‘a feeling of affinity or kindship’ between persons who share inferiority complex is a significant factor. In this novel, there appears to be empathy between the minority who have built an alliance based on feeling alienated because of linguistic incompetence. Dazai’s novels frequently describe alienated persons similar to himself and unilateral sympathies where he projected his pain into them. The writer tried to depict the ‘neighborly love,’ which is of ‘Dazai,’ that finds persons under the shade who are suffering from a sense of alienation like him and gives empathy to them. This trend carried over to his later works including ‘No Longer Human.’