The Retroactive Construction of “Rebels”: Law and Subjectivity in Hiraide Shū's <i>Gyakutō </i>(The Rebels)

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  • 「逆徒」の遡及的形成
  • 「逆徒」の遡及的形成 : 平出修「逆徒」における法と主体
  • 「 ギャクト 」 ノ ソキュウテキ ケイセイ : ヒライデシュウ 「 ギャクト 」 ニ オケル ホウ ト シュタイ
  • ――平出修「逆徒」における法と主体――

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<p>This essay explores the narrative strategy of Hiraide Shū's Gyakutō (The Rebels, 1913), by reading it as a psychological novel. The story is based on the trial, held in secret, of the defendants in the High Treason Incident of 1910-1911. Hiraide foregrounds the psychological drama of Mimura Yasusaburō, modeled on Miura Yasutarō, one of the defendants charged with high treason. The point at issue in the trial was the defendants' political beliefs, rather than the concrete evidence that would prove the existence of a treasonous plot. The underlying context for this emphasis on the defendants' inner motives was the 1907 revision of criminal law which, based on the concept of subjectivism in criminal law theory, required judges to place the greatest emphasis on a defendant's intent, personality, and state of mind. The aim of Gyakutō is, therefore, to reveal the psychology of the defendants through the apparatus of the psychological novel, at the same time casting doubt on their purported anarchist beliefs and desire to commit high treason. Through his psychological description, Hiraide reveals that prior to the death sentence Mimura had no firm beliefs concerning anarchism, much less high treason: the very act of defining these defendants as “rebels” and sentencing them to death retroactively constructs their identity as anarchists. In other words, Hiraide's Gyakutō makes visible the performative power of juridical authority to forge the identity of defendants charged with plotting high treason.</p>

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