<論文>乾いた神経、濡れた神経 : 大正期における二つの身体

Abstract

Following the epidemic of nervous breakdowns in the west at the turn of the twentieth century, many people in Japan suffered from "shinkei-suijaku" (nervous breakdowns) around the Taisho-era (1912-1926). The malady soon became a favorite motif among novelists, who used the characters suffering from nervous breakdowns as mirrors to reflect their own difficulties. Curiously enough, there seem to be some fixed patterns in the way they described the characters in the novels: the patterns can be found in the self-images and the bodily images of the characters. The aim of this article is to investigate these patterns and to consider their potential meanings in regards to contemporary culture and society in Japan, focusing especially on two writers of the age: Sato Haruo and Tanizaki Jun'ichiro. The literary descriptions of the two novelists provide two typically contrasting images of the self and the body. The features of the self-images can be illuminated through a comparison with E. Durkheim's analysis on individual forms of suicide in Suicide. According to Durkheim, the self of the person who commits egoistic suicide is characterized by deep meditation and self-examination, while the self of the person committing anomic suicide is marked with keen desire and sensuality. It can be pointed out here that these two self-images are much the same as the ones of the characters in the novels of Sato and Tanizaki. As for the bodily images, the body in Sato can be characterized as the mechanistic body, whereas the body in Tanizaki is described as the vitalistic body. The former image has the implication of lightness, coolness, and dryness, while the latter is associating with heaviness, warmness, and wetness. The potential meanings of these two contrasting images of the self and the body can be interpreted through a reference to the contemporary social-cultural context in Japan, namely, the gradual change of the idea of "civilization". Despite its generally positive implications in the Meiji-era (1868-1912), the idea of "civilization" began to have negative connotations such as "degeneration" and "decadence" in the Taisho-era. What emerged with these negative interpretations of "civilization" were the masses in the urban areas. The masses were then the agents that led the whole "civilization" in Japan, taking the place of the intellectuals who had been at the front of the process of modernization during the Meiji-era. Here it can be indicated that the two contrasting images of the self and the body, which are seen in the novels of the two writers, actually represented the self and the body of the intellectuals and the masses. The conclusion is that in the very expressions of their individual difficulties embodied in the literary images of people suffering from nervous breakdowns, the two writers were in fact writing within the fixed patterns that circulated throughout the contemporary discursive system, which also regulated the discourses on "civilization".