Abe Kôbô: an Exploration of His Prose, Drama, and Theatre

Towards a New Communi~): Abe Kôbô: an Exploration of his Prose, Drama, and Theatre Timothy John Frederick Iles A dissertation submitted in confomity with the requirements for the degree of Ph. D. Graduate Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto O Timothy Iles, 1997 National Library Bibliothèque nationale M ,,,a du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibhographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. me Wellington OttawaON KIAON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of ths thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Towards a New Community: Abe Kôbô: an Exploration of his Prose, Drama, and Theatre A Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Ph. D., 1997 Timothy John Fredenck Iles Grauate Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto A bstract Thecentrd aim of the dissertation is to examine the possibility for a ne* form of human social interaction which Abe proposes in his work, able to do away with outmoded, restrictive, traditional smctures in favour of communal arrangements more appropriate to the modem, urban world. The Introduction poses the question, 'Why study Abe KÔM?' and proposes that he was an important source of shnidus who propelled Japanese literature toward areas it would not otherwise have examined. Chapter One is a bnef biographical sketch of Abe, covering his early years and the years of his work as an avant-garde novelist, playwright, and theatre director in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. It includes a bnef description of Abe's wife and family, and concludes with a brief account of his death. Chapter Two deals with Abe's literature. It begins with an analysis of Existentialism and the Absurd in his work. It contains an examination of what Abe hirnself has stated his goals to be: to examine the literature of 'rootless grass', to create new routes of communication between people. The chapter prcsents a chronologically developmental close reading of several of Abe's texts. beginning with his first published novel, and concluding with his final hgmentary work. Chapter Three examines Abe's dramatic writings, from his early stage plays to later radio dramas, to the plays he wrote specifically for his own theatrical troupe in the 1970s, the Abe Studio. It explores the greater ernphasis on inter-character dynamics in these works. as compared with Abe's prose, and the clearer shift in Abe's political views from a sympathetically left-wing stance, to a more-properly individualist one. Chapter Four explores Abe's theories on the theatre, including his views on the function of the actor, his method of actor training, and the processes through which he put his troupe to create their stage productions. This chapter incoporates a cornparison of Abe's views on the theatre group with those of Watanabe Tamotsu, the director Senda Koreya, and the director Suzuki Tadashi. The Conclusion presents some final thoughts on Abe's legacy and conmbutions to not only Japanese but world literature as well. Table of Contents Introduction: Why SeAbe Kôbô? Chapter One: A Biographical Sketch Chapter Two: The Fiction of Abe Kôbd Chapter Three: Examining the Dramotic Texts Chapter Four: Abe's Theories on Exercises, A cror TTLU'IU*~~,and Rehearsal Conclusion: Community and Despair Works Cited Introduction: Why Study Abe Kôbô? Abe Kôbô (1924-1993) was a writer of fiction, of drama, and of meen plays; he was a composer of electronic music; he was a photographer, and he was a director and trainer of stage performers. He was a Japanese who was raised in colonial Manchuria, an exile who remed to an unknown and defeated homeland at the end of the Second World War. He was a medical doctor who never practiced medicine. He was an untiring and astute critic of social tyranny over the individual. He was a person fascinated, too, by the propagation of systems, their uncontrollable spread, their vastness, and their fallibility. Every fundamental human system, from language to rational thought, to science with its blind, technological faith, to social and familial order, to nationalism and cultural dogrnatism, to the processes by which individuals formulate and maintain their own private identities, finds its analysis and aitique within Abe's work. In that he wrote prose fiction in the Japanese language, Abe is part of the system of Japanese literature, but he exists within this system as a ghost in the machine, as a proponent of radical social, smctural change-as a wrirer who himself rejected any associations with 'Japanese literature' in favour of the broader context of world literature. In that he created pieces for stage perfomance, he is also a part of the system of Japanese theam, but he exists here, too, as an opponent of traditional forms in favour of, initially, the borrowed foxms of western theatre in the guise of Shingeki, and later, as a proponent of an avant-garde style which rejected both the realism of Shingeki and the renewed willingness to experiment with Introduction: Why srudy Abe ~ûb6?/2 traditional foms found in the Small Theatre or Underground theatre movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. Why then, given Abe's own rejection of so much aaditionally 'Japanese', should one pay attention to his output, let alone make it the exclusive object of study, within the confines of 'Japanese literature' and 'Japanese theatre'? To answer this we must frst decide whether or not it is a positive thing for systems to evolve, to develop, to take on foms capable of encompassing wider potentialities than their earlier guises would have permitted-in short, we must ask if there is mmfor innovation in human systems such as national literature. If we can answer in the affinnative to this question, then we will have to accept Abe as a valuable conmbutor to Japanese literature and stage arts. and hence an appropnate object of study, in that his work-having rejected so much within the maditional sphere of those fields-functions as a powerful stimulus to change not only of artistic standards but of the standards of human relations, as well. This changed standard of human relations is one of the key themes in Abe's writing which 1 hope to explore here. Abe has stated that the discovery of new paths t~wardsthe Other is a central goal of his life, and the prirnary quality of this path is the language dong which communication flows.1 Naiurally a writer must be concerned with language, but few have recognised as clearly as Abe that there is a tension between the mere voicing of simple statements and a full expression of the writer's self. There is a split between the writer's use of language to answer a profound need for self-definition and creativity, and the social need for language which can express the mundane elements of simple 'communication'. This split represents the writer's greatest challenge: how to fashion truly uncornmon Takano. Toshimi. "Hyôden" (Critical Biography) in Abe Kôb6: Shinchi Nihon Bungaku Ambarnu, Tokyo: Shinchôsha, 1994, p. 67. Hereafter AKSNBA. Unless otfierwise noted, al1 translations from the Japanese in this stud y are by the author. Introduction: Why study Abe ~ôbô?/3 products from common materials? Language then takes on a vital role, that of a link between people, but a link which allows individuals to remain individual. Abe suggesrs severai reasuns behind this need for a new Link between people forged of language. Foremost among these is the urbanisation of modem life, in which "the relationship between the Other and the self has changed into something unstable and difficult to grasp."2 Urbanisation has greatly shifted the percentages of the population living on fmsand in the city, yet "most aspects of culture have ken accumulated on top of the human relations esmblished in rural villages. There is a discernible trend to formulate analogies of the conditions of modem existence in the smcture of these mlvillages, but from within this tendency, the stress or the sufferings of people living in the cities is This is because in the urban world, the older, traditional bonds between people have disappeared: "We still have not discovered within us the mords, or the rules, in the complete sense, concerning relations with an unknown Other.'" The older bonds were formed during simpler times, when villages operated as communal groupines of kinsmen. Such phrases as these cannot descnbe modem cities, but there is not yet a suitable vocabulary or mode1 to replace the missing paths of union necessary for stable human relations. Abe sets himself the task of discovenng this vocabulary, and this model. In so doing he positions himself as a fundamentally Modemist writer. Whereas now we operate under new social relationships, our inner selves still cling io the older values. Thus there is a conflict between the self who seeks a new social relationship and the self who tries to maintain the older form. Regardless of what one wants, one still must face the new relationship, although Abe Kôbb.

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