The Literary Battle in Japanese History

Until the mid-1800s, the Japanese had succeeded in sustaining a complex, entrenched, formalized way of living that left little room for self-determination or individual change--or even for its members to consider that they could make such choices. Then, suddenly, Japan's radical collision with the West forced the society as a whole to choose. Under Emperor Meiji, Japan was strong-armed into the modern age. In The New Generation in Meiji Japan Kenneth Pyle writes, "Though this revolution upon which the Meiji leadership embarked in 1868 saved Japan from national disaster such as was experienced nearly everywhere else in Asia, it exacted a fearful cost in historical and cultural dislocation, and thus in psychological strain" (3). The strain which Pyle observes in the historical records was reflected in the literature produced by Japan's writers.

This literary reflection did not happen only in Japan. Throughout the West, rapid changes affected each culture's arts. Fujii observes how literature and the humanitie

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ilth"), the lowest possible rank in a class system that has, at the time of the writing of the book, just been legally eradicated but which still exercises a powerful hold over Japanese society. Ushimatsu has promised his father to keep silent about his origins but longs to confess the truth. He becomes a popular schoolteacher and witnesses the suffering of other eta before finally deciding he must tell his students the truth: "I would like you to remember that you had a teacher called Segawa once, in the fourth year of the upper school, who taught you in this room--who told you, when he confessed to you that he was an eta and said goodbye to all the class, that each first of January he had welcomed in the New Year with the same sweet wine as you do, that on the Emperor's birthday he had sung 'May They Glorious Reign' as fervently as you, and wished you well, praying in his heart for your happiness and success . . . I have done my best each day to teach you only what is right and true. Please remember this, and forgive me if you can for having kept the truth from you till today" (Toson 229). Toson was heavily influenced by his reading of Western authors including Shakespeare; this passage in particular echoes Shylock's famous p
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Approximate Word count = 3225
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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