"The Little Kingdom"

In "The Little Kingdom", Junichiro Tanizaki makes a socio-political commentary on Japan's need for a more democratic form of government. Tanizaki's short story was written in 1918, when prewar Japan was at the beginning of a period of class struggle. That the setting for "The Little Kingdom" is a classroom is no coincidence since the Japanese imperial government targeted education as a chief tool in its indoctrination and repression of the lower classes.

The hero of "The Little Kingdom" is Kaijima Shokichi, a middle-aged schoolteacher. Kaijima is described as a true "child of Edo," Edo being the former name of Tokyo before it was renamed and adopted as the imperial capital. That the hero is a nonconformist is evidenced early in his description. Kaijima is determined to become a scholar and defies the wishes of his father, who wants his son to accept an apprenticeship somewhere. Kaijima's independence is uncharacteristic of Japanese males during this period. The compelling norm of society was that children must do things for the sake of the family: "people learned to inhibit any personal desires which might go beyond the limits of what the family could tolerate or threaten its existence" (Fukutake, 1989, p. 41). Obedience to the household, even when it required considerable personal sacrifice, was encouraged by the imperial government because it helped to maintain harmony in the family that would serve as a model for society as well.

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taught to subjugate their own interests to the interests of the state: "After the initial phase of liberal education, the authorities began to use the schools as vehicles to manufacture loyal subjects who would willingly dedicate their lives to the country and to their emperor" (Hane, 1982, p. 54). The Ministry of Education published a "morals" textbook to be used in all elementary schools. By 1904, the government had restricted all textbooks used in elementary schools to those that were issued by the government itself. Kaijima's ethics lesson is the story of Ninomiya Sontoku, the early 19th-century sage. Sontoku's message to his clan was "frugality;" this was one of the concepts that formed the foundation of filial piety and loyalty to the emperor. Only through frugality and self-sacrifice could the Japanese build their nation to be a competitor with the West. During the ethics lesson, Kaijima discovers that the boys' uncanny loyalty to Numakura has taken on cult-like characteristics. Kaijima is interrupted in his lecture by Numakura's incessant whispering. Unable to ignore it any further, Kaijima demands that the culprit apologize for his infraction. Numakura defiantly refuses to do so: "His expression had the tou

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