A Personal Matter

In part, Oe is exploring in this book what it means to be Japanese (or simply human) in the wake of World War II, a time when conventional definitions of reality had crumbled. Bird represents the postwar Japanese generation which had to forge its identity out of the ashes. Oe and Bird are trying to find what it means to be a human being in a world in which madness and inhumanity seem to reign. The book portrays the choices available in the novel's simplified world: the conventional life of husband, father, and provider, or the unconventional life of sexual experimentation, drunkenness, irresponsibility, and following one's dreams no matter how far-fetched. In sending Bird on his comic trip through the nightmare of postwar Japanese society, Oe is able to both critique that society and to provide a "happy" en

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straight face, takes that baby to the doctor to be killed, and then sets off for Africa to pursue a fantasy similar to the fantasy Bird himself gives up to return to his family. The problem here is that there is apparently no irony, no tongue-in-cheek, in the narrator's reporting of these contradictions. Especially impossible to believe is the claim that Bird hops from a life-changing experience of sodomy with Himiko back to the conventional life with his wife and malformed son in such a short time. This reader finds it difficult to believe that Bird will truly and finally, once and for all, now settle into a happy domestic life. After all, he has lost his teaching job as the result of vomiting in front of his class in the midst of a hangover. Yet he blithely declares, "I'm going to have to put away as much as I can for [the baby's] future as well as our own" (Oe 165). How will he do this? By getting a job as "a guide for foreign tourists" (Oe 165). This is certainly not an impossible dream, but will it truly be that easy for Bird to forever give up his dream of being a writer in Africa? Will he never seek with his conventional wife the same sort of ecstatic and unconventional sexual adventures he had with Himiko? And if he does
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1695
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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