Creating a Tapestry of Voice and Silence in Michiko Ishimure's Kugai jōdo ( Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow )

Abstract

Creating a Tapestry of Voice and Silence in Michiko Ishimure's Kugai jödo {Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow) Yuko Kurahashi As a native of Minamata, I know that the language of the victims of Minamata Disease—botii that of the spirits of the dead who are unable to die, and that of the survivors who are little more than living ghosts-—represents the pristine form of poetry before our societies were divided into classes. In order to preserve for posterity this language in which the historic significance of the Mercury Poisoning Incident is crudely branded, I must drink an infusion of my animism and "pre-animism" and become a sorceress cursing modern times forever. —Michiko Ishimure Voice, an effective apparatus of self-expression, allows an individual to challenge obstacles that interfere with his/her personal liberation, free will, and other forms of autonomy. As Dell Hymes (a scholar in ethnography and linguistics) argues, voice provides two kinds of freedom: "freedom from denial of opportunity," negative freedom, and "freedom for satisfaction ," positive freedom (64). Conversely, the lack of this powerful tool (that aids in obtaining multiple kinds of "freedom")—voicelessness— is a handicap that impedes the acts of exploring ourselves, pursuing autonomous desires, and contesting various types of oppression. Sociologist JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory 33.3 (Fall 2003): 315-334. Copyright © 2003 by JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory. 316 JNT Margaret D. LeCompte states that this juxtaposition exists in every discursive field as "privileged and non-privileged voices." LeCompte points out that in discursive fields in which multiple voices collide with one another, some voices are more powerful than others and "speak for" the rest of the community by "hiding or altering data, rewriting or refusing to release the report, blackmailing, or firing the researcher, or many number of their equally effective strategies" (102). People with power (economic, political , institutional, and other kinds) possess the discursive authority to "articulate " their voices, while people in powerless positions—in the margins —lack ways to express their ideas, feelings, and hopes, and are often under pressure to keep silent. How, then, can the subaltern "retrieve" their voices? How can all of us truly "listen," really hear them? Postcolonial feminist theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak reiterates that in order to empower themselves marginalized people (in the Third World and anywhere) must first critically examine their condition. Spivak's Marxist-centered criticism is particularly relevant in contemporary capitalist society where the "less privileged population" continues to grow, and where their voices continue to be trivialized and erased in every aspect of life. Medical discourse is a case in point. Arthur Kleinman, a psychiatrist who researched the narratives of patients suffering from chronic illnesses, found that medical practitioners "have been taught to regard patients' illness narratives with suspicion and causal beliefs" (17); in medical discourse, patients' personal narratives are interpreted "in the light of [practitioners'] own special interest," so that the social values of those in power are reified (52). Hanoch Livneh, who researched the impact that disabled people have on society, define those values as "pervasive social and cultural norms, standards, and expectations" (181). They explain that disabled people internalize "the creation of negative attitudes toward the disabled population" set in those "social and cultural norms," and thus perpetuate their marginalization.1 Japanese writer Michiko Ishimure echoes those findings in her "nonfictional " novel, Kugaijödo (Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow), and she both hears and helps us to listen to subaltern voices. Kugaijödo is about Minamata disease, a fatal neurological disorder caused by ingesting methyl mercury (MeHg). The characteristic symptoms of Minamata disease are "sensory disturbance in the distal parts of extremities, ataxia, disequilibrium , concentric construction of the visual field, impairment of gait and Creating a Tapestry of Voice and Silence 317 speech, muscular weakness or atrophy, tremor, abnormal eye movement and hearing impairment" (Ishimure ii). Children and embryos are especially sensitive to MeHg as compared to adults (Kuznetsov 3). One main pathological damage is the "loss of the granule cells which causes changes in the cerebellar cortex."2 Another is "lesions in the calcarme cortex along the depth of the calcarine fissure."3 The most notable damage is the "degeneration of...