Dazai Osamu, "Confessions of an "inferior" person": analysis and feedback

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

“My whole life is a shame. Although I was never able to understand what a human life is.” With these words, Dazai Osamu's Confessions of an "inferior" person begins. A story about a man who didn't know what he wanted. He voluntarily sank to the bottom of society and took his fall for granted. But whose fault is this? The man that made such a choice? Or a society that left no other options?

Shuji Tsushima

Dazai Osamu is perhaps the most famous Japanese writer of the early 20th century. Few people know that his real name is Shuji Tsushima. The writer was born on June 19, 1909 in Aomori Prefecture in a family of noble aristocrats. At the age of 14, he went to high school, after graduation he left for Hirosaki and entered the Lyceum as a philologist. Despite the fact that all lyceum students had to live in a hostel, he lived with distant relatives (herewhat does noble origin mean). After the Lyceum, Shuji entered the Teikoku University of Tokyo at the Faculty of French Literature. An interesting fact: the future writer was not a fan of French literature and entered this faculty only because there was no need to pass exams.

A writer and a geisha

Shuji did not have time to unlearn a semester at the university, as a woman appears in his life - the geisha Beniko. They start a stormy romance. Naturally, this causes a wave of indignation in the family circle, and the head of the family is immediately sent to Tokyo. Shuji is forced to sign out of the family book so as not to shame the noble family with his behavior. Very soon he received a notice of discharge, and a couple of days later he became engaged to a geisha. True, something went wrong: a few days after the engagement, Shuji attempts suicide, he was saved, but the girl with whom he jumped into the sea was not in time.

This story is very reminiscent of fragments from Osamu Dazai's book "Confessions of an "inferior" person." Coincidence? Unlikely. Most likely, the story is autobiographical.

Birth of Dazai Osamu

The world first became aware of Dazai Osamu's existence in February 1933, when the story "The Train" was printed in a Tokyo newspaper. He received first prize in a competition held by this newspaper. This is how the fictional Dazai Osama entered literary history. Since that time, the writer began the pursuit of the perfectwork. Although he was listed as a student, he did not attend lectures, but sought to create a story of his life and leave this world.

So, from his pen, about 24 works came out, among which was "Confession of an "inferior" person" (Dazai Osamu).

Disgusting but beautiful

"Ugly and beautiful" is how Osamu Dazai's Confessions of an "inferior" person can be described.

The story tells about the life of a weak man Yozo Obe. This is a story about the tragic fate of a young artist who had the fate of living during the revolutionary events in the country. In terms of physical he alth, he is quite normal. His "inferiority" is manifested in the unwillingness to live.

The hero finds solace in alcohol, women and drugs. Perhaps, in other conditions, such behavior could be called rebellious: against the foundations of the family and society as a whole. But he just does not want anything from life, he has no goal, no desires.

Abysses of darkness

As a child, when his father went to the city and asked Yozo what to buy, he could not decide. Immediately after the question, he stopped wanting anything at all. Dazai Osamu's Confessions of an Incompetent Man doesn't even have a hint of a ray of hope. Yozo is a coward and a weakling, a low and disgusting person who ruined more than one life.

Should he be condemned? Not at all. He makes decisions on his own and will not make any benefit for himself from condemnations. The reader seems to become an unwitting witness to howman falls into the abyss. He has a chance to get out, but Yozo purposefully seeks to hide in the abyss of darkness. A man who refused to accept his life and fight for it. How can you call his story about his life? Only the confession of an "inferior" person.

Reviews

And yet this work is a wonderful literary study. When you turn the last page and remember the main character, there is immediately some kind of vile aftertaste. But the gloomy tonality, the syllable, refined in its minimalism, evoke the feeling that you had to hold an amazing masterpiece of art in your hands.

Reviews of Dazai Osamu's Confessions of an "inferior" person for the most part have a pronounced duality: readers assure that the book is good and at the same time feel some disgust for the main character. In some cases, hatred may be replaced by indifference, pity, or anger that readers feel towards Yozo. Although in general, reviews of the product are positive.

This book was published in 1948. Already in the 1950s, Dazai Osamu's Confessions of an "inferior" person was translated into English and published in America. After the war, Dazai Osamu was the first Japanese writer who was known to other countries, and all because he very naturally and sincerely described the state of losing Japan.

In 1968, when massive student riots were taking place around the world,one of the Japanese newspapers conducted a survey among young people. It turned out that "Confessions of an "inferior" person" was included in the list of literature that can inspire. Along with this work, students of the 4 main universities of the country called "War and Peace" (L. N. Tolstoy), "Crime and Punishment" (F. M. Dostoevsky), "Outsider" (A. Camus). And even now, Dazai Osamu is considered one of the best prose writers of Japanese literature.

Autobiographical story

"Confessions of an "inferior" person" (Dazai Osamu) is an autobiographical story. The author wrote it when he left the psychiatric hospital, where he was treated for drug addiction. Initially, he published a story about a lost man. Although he managed to fully embody this image in "Confession".

Dazai Osamu is a significant and tragic figure in Japanese literature. Biographical character is characteristic of all his works, even in Yozo's "Confessions of an "inferior" person" he attributes his real memories from childhood. The sad fate made the writer famous, he was always guided by his own ideas about literature, introduced something new into its culture and very realistically described Japanese society. He managed to preserve the elegance of the Japanese literary tradition in his works. Reading his works means seeing Japan from the inside, feeling its smell, mood and grandeur.

"The story of an "inferior" person" is one of the stories of Dazai Osamu. Social movements play an important role here.and political development of the country. The author is sure that war is a real absurdity, which brings nothing but destruction. He is disgusted by the inhumanity of society, which is clearly manifested in the main character.

The psychologism of the work has such a high level because of the tragic fate of the writer himself. Thanks to the problems experienced, as well as the focus of the literary plot on modern Japanese society, which so vividly worried about the fate of their country, even the confession of a morally crippled person, about which it is not always pleasant to read, has become a sought-after and valuable masterpiece.