Morl Ogai: Three Plays And The Problem Of Identity

Abstract

EVERY MAJOR WRITER IN JAPAN SINCE 1868 has written with one overwhelming fact impinging upon his consciousness: the shattering impact of the West upon traditional values and the concomitant necessity for making an adjustment to this situation. (Even when the works of certain writers like Higuchi Ichiyo, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, and Kawabata Yasunari reflect little or nothing of this dislocation, there is implied in their activity within areas free of this confrontation. the choice of rejecting, for whatever reason, the alien part of the new hybrid culture.) For Japan, only the defeat in World War II was more traumatic than the reopening of the country after its withdrawal into isolation in 1639 with only a minimal contact with the rest of the world. When the importunities of the Western powers could no longer be put off and the Tokugawa shogunate entered into unilateral treaties with foreign nations, its opponents, rallying around the emperor, quickly established a battle line that brought down the house that had been the political ruler for 265 years. The rallying cry of the anti-shogunate forces had been "Revere the emperor and expel the barbarians," but it was ironically under the new emperor Meiji (r. 1868-1912) that Japan turned to the West for assistance in modernization when the new leaders realized with a sense of urgency the need for overcoming the backwardness of their nation. Convulsive political, economic, and social reforms delivered Japan painfully into the modern world.