Paper short abstract:

The study clarifies how the repatriates' works have been excluded as the darkness of modern Japanese literature by analyzing the conflicts between the repatriates' perpetrator consciousness and victim consciousness.

Paper long abstract:

There were more than six million repatriates who had withdrawn from colonies and occupied territories in post-war Japan. Some of them told their repatriation experience in novels. They are called "repatriation writers", and their works, based on their own repatriation experience, are called "repatriation literature".

　Repatriation literature, a product of imperialism, is an important part of Japanese literature for the post-war imperialism and colonialism studies because it depicts the experience of colonists. However, the repatriation literature has been rarely studied until recently, because the repatriation literature, stories told by colonists and perpetrators, was considered as negative in post-war Japan.

　In post-war Japan, victim consciousness, such as'war criminals'and 'atomic bombs', became the dominant ideology. Therefore, the repatriation literature, symbolizing the perpetrators, were excluded by society. The repatriation writers could hardly tell their memories of the past. Besides, the works written by the repatriates who were recognized as perpetrators were not appreciated. In other words, the oppressor's point of view in the repatriation literature was deliberately eliminated by the mainstream ideology in post-war Japan.

　In the post-war Japanese society where victim consciousness occupies the mainstream ideology, the voices of the repatriates as both colonists and perpetrators were inevitably oppressed and became a dark part of the society. Also, the excluded part, or the dark part of the society, strongly suggests that post-war Japan is still influenced by imperialism.

　This paper analyzes the repatriation literature written by Abe Kōbō, a representative repatriation writer, and focuses on the perpetrators' aspects depicted in Abe's works, which was written in post-war Japanese society where victim consciousness occupies the mainstream ideology. The paper analyzes how the oppressive discourses of the repatriates have been represented in the social context where victim consciousness is emphasized. Furthermore, the study clarifies how the repatriates' works have been excluded as the darkness of modern Japanese literature by analyzing the conflicts between the repatriates' perpetrator consciousness and victim consciousness.