Paper short abstract:

In Man'en gan'nen no futtobōru (1967) Ōe created a world where echoes of 1860 revolt shape lives of two brothers – Mitsusaburō and Takashi, who return to their home on Shikoku. This paper examines how characters in the novel construct their identities through often distorted narratives of the past.

Paper long abstract:

Ōe Kenzaburō's novel Man'en gan'nen no futtobōru was published in 1967 and arguably marked a peak of the first decade of Ōe's career as a writer and could be read as a culmination of various motives, that were characteristic of his early works. The novel tells a story of two brothers, Nedokoro Mitsusaburō and Takashi, who travel back to their home village on Shikoku in early 1960’s. Main purpose of their visit is to sell their old family storehouse, but they also seek recovery from various traumas they suffered in the past. Mitsusaburō just lost a friend, who killed himself under bizarre circumstances. Mitsusaburō´s wife struggles with alcoholism, after giving birth to handicapped baby they eventually left in an institution. Takashi has just returned from US, where he went with theater group called Our Shame after the failure of 1960 Anpo protests and returned to Japan obsessed with heroic visions of their family’s past.

In Man'nen gan'nen no futtobōru, Ōe created a world where historical and individual narratives together with local myths create a unique fictional space - the idea of 1860 peasant rebellion led by Mitsusaburō and Takashi's great-grandfather's younger brother has already deviated far from historical fact but has always been present in a form of a myth. Both brothers construct their own narratives of the past events, not only of 1860 rebellion, but also regarding the death of their brother S after the end of the WWII. While older, passive Mitsusaburō tends to question the myth and is rather skeptical towards the idea of heroism, active Takashi accepts it, identifies with it and even strives to recreate it in contemporary setting.

This paper examines how Ōe’s layering of various turbulent periods of Japanese history ripples throughout time in form of constructed individual narratives, that often clash with each other and how the idea of revolt and one´s approach towards it construct the identity of an individual. In this context, the presenter examines a symbolic function of these individual narratives in the context of post-war Japan and mainly the turbulent 1960’s.