Shiga Naoya
Background Facts about 'At Kinosaki' Shiga Naoya wrote "At Kinosaki" (Kinosaki ni te - 銃の稿にA) in 1917, when he was 34 years old. The story is based on his real experience in the autumn of 1913, when he was recovering at the hot springs of Kinosaki, from an accident which nearly took his life. Shiga was walking with a friend toward Shibaura one evening along beside the train track of the Yamanote Line when the train hit him from behind. The incident is recorded in Shiga's diary, and was believed to be the material on which an unfinished work called "Inochi" (いのち) written by Shiga in 1914 was based. All the incidents that take place in the novel did actually happen in the same period of time of three weeks. "At Kinosaki" is considered to be a fine example of Shiga Naoya's famous style of writing, and an exemplary model of the "I novel" (shi-shosetsu - "小紳) . It is also a work often used as a great example of a novel written in a movement coined as the "Naturalism" movement; which describes writers attempting to take scientific methods of observation and turn it into literature. Shiga Naoya is reported to have said that he never attempted to draw a line between story novels
We begin to see how Shiga relates 'quietness' and 'loneliness' to death. "If I developed tuberculosis of the spine it could be fatal, but the doctor did not think it would". It is no wonder that Shiga Naoya is considered by many to be a great stylist and the god of literature. The Death of the Rat It was still the morning of the day after the rain had washed away the dead bee, when the narrator encounters another death of an animal. Of loneliness" when looking at the dead bee. It is not hard to see this imagery of 'quietness' and 'loneliness' representing death when reading the story. Sibley; printed in:Sibley, William "The Shiga Hero" University of Chicago Press, 1979 pgs. It is of my belief that this death of the lizard represents any sudden death from accident or tragedy; death which the victim is not at all prepared for. Earlier in the story he had described his heart as "strangely quiet" when he was thinking the gloomy thoughts of death. This death of a rat is much more cruel and deliberate than the natural death of the bee. If we look at the first sentence of the novel "I had been hit by a train on the Tokyo loop line and I went alone to Kinosaki hot spring to convalesce" we can immediately recognize his 'matter of fact' style of writing. This death represents a natural death; dying of old age. When describing the road that he often strolled on before dinner in the evenings, he explains how he sometimes looked into the stream under the road: "Sometimes when I looked carefully, I could find a big river crab with hair on its claws, still as stone.
Common topics in this essay:
Water Lizard,
Death Bee,
Shiga Naoya,
Death Rat,
Tanizaki Junichiro,
Conclusion Overall,
Kinosaki Kinosaki,
Shiga Naoya's,
Yamanote Line,
Closing Paragraph,
shiga naoya,
dead bee,
'quietness' 'loneliness',
shiga hero,
shiga naoya kenkyuu,
japan library,
sibley william,
artless art,
library 1998,
sibley william shiga,
chicago press,
william shiga hero,
shiga writes,
chicago press 1979,
university chicago press,
|
Acceptance Essays
