Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Karolína Kučerová “These People Are Not Exactly Human”: Images of the Japanese in The Man in the High Castle and Snow Falling on Cedars Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph. D. 2019 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. .................................... Karolína Kučerová Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph.D., for her guidance and valuable feedback during the process of writing this thesis. My thanks also go to Mgr. Filip Krajník, Ph.D. for his commentary on the Dickian part of this thesis. Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 1. Images of the Japanese in the United States ......................................................... 8 1.1. The Discourse of Orientalism ........................................................................... 8 1.2. Images of the Japanese in the U.S. History .................................................... 11 1.3. First Impressions upon Opening Japan: Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan ............................... 21 1.4. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture .............. 23 1.5. The Four Categories from The Idea of Japan ................................................. 28 2. The Japanese in The Man in the High Castle ...................................................... 32 2.1. Representations of the Japanese in The Man in the High Castle .................... 38 3. The Japanese in Snow Falling on Cedars ............................................................ 44 3.1. The Struggle of Coming to Terms with the Past ............................................ 46 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 60 Works Cited .................................................................................................................. 62 Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 69 Resumé ........................................................................................................................... 70 Introduction The human race is quick to judge everything and everyone who is different. It is so because people have the need to sort things into categories to understand them and when something does not fit into a category where the majority occurs, it is instantly labelled as “foreign”, “strange” or “different” and perceived with skepticism and instant prejudice and hostility. This hostility in part induces the development of certain images or stereotypes which can permeate the views of an individual as well as a community and can substantially influence one’s way of thinking and their decision-making process. To illustrate the power of stereotyping, this thesis draws on two novels – The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick and Snow Falling on Cedars (1994) by David Guterson; two novels with a significant presence of characters of Japanese descent. Both novels’ plots take place on the Pacific Coast, which, in relation to the Japanese (but also other minorities), has quite a turbulent past; a past which is interlaced with racial prejudice and stereotype towards the Japanese. It is not only their appearance that differs; it is also their culture and habits. One slip and the “others” are viewed as villains. However, as the thesis shows, there does not even have to be the slip. Only memories and perceptions based on a false sense of superiority are enough. The main argument of this thesis is that regardless of the time period, the attitudes of the Americans towards the Japanese stay more or less unchanged. In its respective parts, the thesis examines the process of creating certain stereotypical images and various representations of the Japanese. The selected literary examples are useful for this purpose as they reflect certain cultural sentiment of a particular time. To understand the construction of particular stereotypes and prejudice, the thesis first deals with the discourse of Orientalism as it was conceived by Edward Said in his Orientalism (1978) and some consequences which have shaped attitudes of 5 the Americans towards the Japanese. These attitudes are then demonstrated in the second subchapter which examines the history of the Japanese in the USA, thus providing historical evidence for the later analysis of the two literary examples. The three following subchapters introduce three different works which have presented specific images of the Japanese and influenced the ways in which the Japanese have been represented in the USA in the past 150 years. The first work, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan (1856) by Francis L. Hawks, provides one of the first collections of American images of the Japanese upon entering Japan in 1853. The anthropological study by Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), examines the patterns of Japanese culture and provides their description along with their explanation and comparison to their American counterparts. The last of these works is a collection of popular images of the Japanese through which Americans has seen the Japanese – The Idea of Japan (1996) by Ian Littlewood. The span of their respective publications covers some 150 years which is a sufficient time period against which the arguments presented in the thesis can be validated. Furthermore, given that the examination of U.S. history covers more or less the same time period, the three works are well suited to illustrate how the Americans have viewed the Japanese. Moreover, due to the fact that the three works are each of a different type – one travel book, one anthropological study and one popular collection, the range of the examined images is wide enough to provide sufficient foundation for the analysis. Similarly, the possibility that some images are excluded from the analysis is limited. The second chapter examines the way the Japanese are portrayed in The Man in the High Castle, a science fiction novel from the 1960s. Special attention is paid to the character of Robert Childan, a 38-year-old American, whose attitude towards the 6 Japanese undergoes the most significant transformation. The way he treats the Japanese can be to some extent compared to the way the Japanese have been treated throughout U.S. history (as is discussed in the first chapter): on the one hand he admires them for certain features, on the other he hates them and considers them inferior. The third chapter analyses the second of the selected novels, Snow Falling on Cedars, written in the 1990s. The chapter examines what happens when traumatizing past and deeply rooted prejudices join and how this combination affects the present. This chapter analyses two of the novel’s characters, Etta Heine and Ishmael Chambers, and their respective attitudes towards the Japanese. While Etta typifies the attitudes of the older generation, Ishmael represents the younger one. Furthermore, the thesis examines Guterson’s use of a murder trial as the novel’s setting. The murder trial provides special space for the exploration of the prejudices which Americans have harbored since World War II. 7 1. Images of the Japanese in the United States 1.1. The Discourse of Orientalism The concept of Orientalism refers to Edward W. Said’s theory of the Western tendency to perceive Eastern cultures and its people in certain ways based on the differences between the West (the Occident) and the East (the Orient). It is mostly a European1 construct but it can be applied to the whole Western hemisphere. However, there are variations across the West as to which Western countries regard which Eastern countries as Oriental: while Europeans associate the Orient with countries in the Middle East such as Egypt and other Arabic countries, Americans “[do] not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East” (Said 1) and countries such as Japan and China. Said explains this difference by acknowledging Europe’s colonial past: for Europeans, the Orient is “the place of [their] greatest and richest and oldest colonies” as well as “the source of [their] civilization and languages” (1). The United States, on the other hand, was not a colonial power like the European countries therefore its interest has been directed elsewhere (Weir 3). This distinction is important as the thesis focuses on the American views of and experience with the Orient, specifically Japan, than on the European ones. Said defines Orientalism, aside from being a field of study, as “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the 1 Even though there has been a long-term dispute about whether or not Russia should be considered part of Europe (Davies 32-35), in Said’s Orientalism the country is considered European as Russia is among the countries which, even though to a lesser extent, “have had a long tradition of ... Orientalism” (1). Thus, for clarity’s sake, the latter claims about Asia do not include Russia as part of “the Orient”, but rather “the Occident”. 8