Questioning Self-Awareness : A New Perspective on the Novel through Takeda Taijun's Shinpan (The Judgment, 1947)

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  • 「自覚」の特権性を問う : 武田泰淳「審判」における小説の可能性
  • 「 ジカク 」 ノ トッケンセイ オ トウ : タケダ タイジュン 「 シンパン 」 ニ オケル ショウセツ ノ カノウセイ

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This paper attempts to interpret Takeda Taijun's Shinpan (The Judgment, 1947) as a novelistic demonstration of Taijun's effort to overcome issues arising from his prewar work, Shiba Sen, (Sima Qian, 1943). The first section of the paper points out the commonalities between two works published around the same time, Shiba Sen and Koyama Iwao's Sekaishi no tetsugaku (The Philosophy of World History, 1942), and shows the limitations of discussing pluralism on a metaphysical level alone. The second section argues that the cosmopolitan nature of the city of Shanghai and the narrative polyphony in Shinpan function as tools to help overcome the shortcomings of Shiba Sen. The thirdand the fourth sections argue that the polyphony of the narrative in Shinpan casts strong doubt on the uniqueness of individual self-awareness, and propose to find in the story the hidden theme of violent animalistic nature seen in human history. Thus the paper opens up the possibility of finding animalistic themes in postwar literature.

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