CONFLICT AND CONFUSION: BEWILDERED TRAVEL IN THE FICTION OF SHUSAKU ENDO A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The School of Continuing Studies and of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In Liberal Studies By Alan S. Hanson, Ph.D. Georgetown University Washington D.C. December 3, 2009 CONFLICT AND CONFUSION: BEWILDERED TRAVEL IN THE FICTION OF SHUSAKO ENDO Alan S. Hanson, Ph.D. Mentor: Frederick Ruf, Ph.D. ABSTRACT In Frederick Ruf’s recently published book Bewildered Travel, he theorizes that travelers set out specifically to seek confusion or bewilderment and that this makes travel – all travel – religious. Ruf set forth his admittedly idiosyncratic view of travel and religion in the Introduction of his book: Leaving home, stepping into the way that will lead us away, far away, walking among strangers, being stunned, getting lost – these are religious behaviors. (Ruf 2007, 4) Shusaku Endo, one of the most important Japanese writers of fiction in the post-war period, has an unusual background – he was born in Japan, raised in China, educated partly in France and converted to Catholicism at age eleven. Many of his fictional works are based on the experience of travel. These include his masterpiece, Silence, and also The Samurai, Wonderful Fool and Deep River. Endo apparently uses travel as a mechanism to explore the conflicts, confusion and alienation that occur when East meets West and vice versa. Ruf’s book focuses on Western and primarily American authors. This raises the question of whether Ruf’s theory of bewildered travel serves as a unifying principle by which one can analyze and better understand the fictional writings of ii Shusaku Endo which have travel as a central thematic element. The intent of this thesis was to undertake a close reading of four of Endo’s travel-related novels and analyze them using Ruf’s Bewildered Travel as a lens to bring them into focus. The result of this analysis is that Endo’s novels do in fact conform to the precepts identified by Ruf regarding bewildered travel. One can thus conclude that the works of Shusaku Endo add to the body of literature that supports Ruf’s idiosyncratic view of travel as a religious undertaking. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No work of scholarship emerges ex nihilo. The trail of individuals who deserve acknowledgment extends back more than forty years. I will confine myself to the recent past. Professor Thomas Taaffe, Adjunct Professor, at Manhattanville College in New York first encouraged and inspired me to undertake pursuit of a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies. Bill O’Brien, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University introduced me to Shusaku Endo and his masterpiece, Silence. Professor Frederick Ruf of Georgetown University deserves dual acknowledgement; his was the first course I took at Georgetown, and it was his book Bewildered Travel that provided inspiration for my thesis. Mary Beth Ginder deserves special acknowledgement for she is the person who reduced my hand written chicken scratches in red ink to a readable manuscript. My wife, Bairbre Hanson, also deserves special acknowledgment. Her patience was remarkable; at no point did she verbalize what she undoubtedly thought – “You’re crazy. Why do this?” Finally, there are my beloved children Alanna and Colin Hanson. They, too, probably assumed their father was crazy to pursue another degree late in life. However, it is to them this work is dedicated. For them and for all readers of this thesis, there is a simple message – education is a life-long endeavor; become pilgrims and continue to seek orientation. iv But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad. James Joyce, Dubliner v CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………...iv EPIGRAPH…………………………………………………………………………..v CHAPTER 1. TRAVEL AS RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR……………………….………………1 2. SHUSAKU ENDO: BEWILDERED TRAVELER.......………………………...15 3. SILENCE: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED………………………………..20 4. THE SAMURAI: A RIDE OF PASSAGE.………………………………………35 5. WONDERFUL FOOL: STREET PEOPLE AND A HOLY STRANGER.……..55 6. DEEP RIVER: PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS…………………………………….....74 7. RETURNING HOME?.........................................................................................94 REFERENCE LIST………………………………………………………………….104 vi CHAPTER 1 TRAVEL AS RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR It is a cliché to say that every journey that takes place in a work of fiction is in fact a quest. See, for example, How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, the first chapter of which sets out to make a case for the validity of this cliché. At the heart of every cliché lies a kernel of truth that gives it substance. In Frederick Ruf’s recently published book, Bewildered Travel, the author goes well beyond this cliché and extends it to the realm of religion. He theorizes that travelers set out specifically to seek confusion or bewilderment and that this makes travel – all travel – religious. Ruf sets forth his admittedly idiosyncratic view of travel and religion in the “Introduction” to his book: Leaving home, stepping into the way that will lead us away, far away, walking among strangers, being stunned, getting lost – these are religious behaviors. (Ruf 2007, 4) Ruf presents evidence drawn not only from memoirs and travel literature but also from works of fiction to support his hypothesis. The authors cited by Ruf are Westerners and predominantly Americans. There is nothing inherent in Ruf’s perspective that would restrict its applicability to Western literature. Therefore, it is logical to ask whether or not travel as religion can be found in other cultural traditions. My own thesis will attempt to extend Ruf’s musings to encompass the writings of an author from a very different cultural tradition – specifically those of the Japanese author, Shusaku Endo. Before we set out on this exploration – a quest – it is necessary first to understand 1 what it is that we are seeking. Exactly what is bewildered travel? One way to approach the answer to this question is to define what it is not. Ruf does this in the second chapter of his book, “Commerce with the Ancients.” This chapter title derives from the writings of Matthew Arnold one of the foremost British literary and social critics of the nineteenth century. It was Arnold’s view that travel is educational and a means for self- improvement which he thought to be particularly necessary for the British middle classes. In fact he was so focused on the educational value of travel that he found it unnecessary actually to make a journey to obtain the value of travel – it was sufficient to read, look at art in books or museums and listen to music. This is “figurative” travel as opposed to real travel; it is an attempt to come into contact with the best that Western culture had produced without the trouble associated with physical journeys. When physical travel was involved, Arnold praised the type characterized by the grand tour in which young Englishmen set off for the continent of Europe, while carefully chaperoned, to visit the most important museums, monuments and sites. Education was to come almost by osmosis through the collection of views of important cultural relics left by European predecessors – the Ancients. Ruf coins a term for this type of educational travel – he calls it “Arnoldian travel.” The problem with this type of travel is that it is too “lite” in the twenty-first century meaning of this adjective – without calories, heft, or substance. This is not to say that Arnoldian travel has no religious value. Ruf is careful to acknowledge that “Arnoldian travel is religious by improving and correcting . that which corrects and improves is 2 enormously powerful for the sight of it alone is effective like a Christian relic.” (Ruf 2007, 43) Arnold’s concern is religious – who are we and who must we become. This is consistent with Ruf’s hypothesis in his “Introduction” – all travel is religious. There exists a twenty-first century analog to Arnold’s nineteenth century grand tour. Rare is the week that I do not find in my mailbox a glossy flyer from one of the educational institutions with which I have been associated. The flyers offer educational (that is, Arnoldian) travel to exotic destinations in the Far East, Africa or the Mediterranean accompanied by a learned professor who will explain the value of the sites visited. No need to carry your luggage, find shelter and food; all this will be provided. Each day is to be filled with educational activities with a few hours of free time set aside during which one can be Western – shop. What is missing is the opportunity to have real interactions with the local populace, to suffer confusion, or to become totally lost. As Ruf informs his readers, Arnold finally made a visit to America in 1883. Of primary interest about this visit is Walt Whitman’s reaction to it – “Arnold always gives you the notion that he hates to touch the dirt – the dirt is so dirty! But everything comes out of the dirt – everything.” (Ruf 2007, 54) Whitman’s observation is critical to an understanding of Ruf’s thesis regarding bewildered travel. As he states at the end of the chapter, “the chief difficulty with educational travel, with ‘commerce with the ancients’ is that so little dirt is encountered.” In effect the reader has been put on notice – follow the dirt. Bewildered travel then is not educational travel. It is exactly the opposite; instead 3 of seeking clarity, it is confusion and even conflict which are to be sought. Ruf admits that when he travels he seeks disruption. This craving for bewilderment and disruption he calls the “love of ruptures,” the title given to the first chapter of Bewildered Travel.