Paper short abstract:

This study focuses on the representations of the politically oppressed that appear repeatedly in Kōbō Abe's early works. The study concludes how the author's experience of "absence" connects politics and literature at the linguistic level through the text of "presence".

Paper long abstract:

It is generally agreed that the relationship between politics and literature is hyponymy or rivalry. Based on such notion, the analysis that involves extracting the representation of author's political attribute and political influence directly from literary texts and returning it to social context has become dominant in the studies of the interaction between politics and literature. Politics utilizes literature for ideological control; however the literature being surrounded by politics can unconsciously acquire the power of a revolution against politics in the process. This study considers that politics and literature exist as a mirror image of each other, and they perceive their own subjects by realizing their mirror image. Furthermore, the author's "experience" involves an interaction between politics and literary texts. Namely, the actual experience of the author is functioning as a mirror and therefore it is relating politics and literature to each other, thus reflecting them.

"Experience" has been discussed over a long time in the historical context that emphasizing individuals. As the end of the war subverted the traditional political structure, literature also came to transform the dismantling of the subject as a universal theme. While the existence of such individuals is being ignored, however it is important to consider the framework of knowledge based on a notion that the "experience" can be recognized through the text,. The innovative aspect of this study is in the point of creating a concept of "blank zone" that appears in the middle between the author's experience which has been recognized as "absence", and the text which has been recognized as "presence".

Firstly, this study focuses on the representations of the politically oppressed such as Manchukuo, desert, villages and communities that appear repeatedly in Kōbō Abe's early works, and confirms the peripheral meaning symbolized by such political existence within the texts. Secondly, the study clarifies the representation of the political oppression that is born in Abe's unconsciousness during the process in which experience of "absence" is projected on the text of "presence". Finally, this study reveals how the author's experience connects politics and literature at the linguistic level through the text.