大江健三郎『水死』論

Abstract

Though there are not a few studies on <Death by Water> by Oe Kenzaburo, the meaning of the complex structure of the novel has rarely been mentioned. For instance, many researchers see this novel as the total reconciliation. However, reconciliation with father exists, but that with son does not, and a search for salvation is suggested to be continued. Moreover, the set-up that the characters who help Gogito face up to his inner side and understand his father are women is a try to overcome the male-oriented `modernized Japanese society' and to show a direction of a new society open to ethnological outsiders. This is what distinguishes this novel from <Mind> by Natsume Soseki, in which the main character chooses a man as the leader of the next generation and is described as a person who is willing to die for Meiji Spirit. The conclusion that hints that Daio, an outsider, kills himself, whom his father brought, denotes that Daio undertakes Gogito's responsibility and thus the role to keep the grove, which is a healing community, has been granted to an outsider. This set-up also shows a hope for a new relationship with Asia beyond modern Japan which had a distorted relationship with Asia. This is what distinguishes <Death by Water> from <Football of the First Year of Manen>, in which the symbiosis of the same ethnic groups was suggested through the acceptance of a brother's baby conceived by his wife. In <Death by Water>, while the basis structure of Oe's novels that the healing of individuals is the same as the healing of a nation (as a community) is inherited, the female and Asia are placed at the center as the main agents of the next generation. Through it, this novel shows a clearer orientation than the communities in his previous works, and at the same time it reveals a realization that the post-war era is not an ideal space sharply cut off from the pre-war era, but a space that is destined to involve the pre-war era. This realization is a severe criticism of the post-war elites including Oe Kenzaburo himself who secured their moral status through the accusation of the pre-war era. Also, it is a process to accept the pre-war era completely and overcome it as a father.