다자이 오사무(太宰治) 「토카톤톤(トカトントン)」에 나타난 모순의 구조 - 다자이 오사무의 전후 인식을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Osamu Dazai’s (太宰治) Tokatonton(トカトントン) novel was published in Volume 2, Issue 1 of Gunzō (群像), on January 1, 1947. The novel is written in an epistolary format, where a 26-year-old young man complains to a certain writer about the pain of hearing a hammering sound and losing motivation, every time he tries to focus on something. The present paper contemplates Dazai’s post-war perceptions, after examining issues of post-war Japan’s ambivalence, desire for innocence, and expressions of irony, with a focus on the logical contradictions revealed in Tokatonton. Japan’s defeat in the war, brought about a surging desire to overcome the past and build a new Japan. This contradicted with those who wanted to go against the times and continue fighting. To the Japanese people, Japan’s defeat also meant liberation and freedom from the oppression of militarism. However, even after the defeat, the General Head Quarters (GHQ) ruthlessly censored creative works that went against the occupation policy. The issues that the young man in Tokatonton want to focus on, such as ‘writing novels,’ ‘post office work,’ ‘dating,’ ‘workers’ demonstrations,’ ‘sports,’ and ‘black market dealings,’ symbolize the misaligned post-war space. The young man’s frustration itself is ‘post-war frustration,’ which symbolizes the same. Hence, the method of expressing post-war Japan’s two sides in Tokatonton is similar to the method of expressing ‘irony’ in Japanese Romanticism, where Osamu Dazai had once participated. It can be said that, Osamu Dazai’s ‘ironic’ expressions have the structure in which, the side revealed openly and its opposing hidden side, reveal themselves cyclically, thus making it impossible to know the truth. For Dazai, Japan’s post-war space was ironic and impossible to interpret, with coexisting freedom and oppression. The hope of building a new Japan and the pitiful reality that did not match, neither did the pure ideals and the ‘dirty’ worldliness.