Besides portraying the sociological effects of Japan’s modernization, Sōseki also comments on modern Japan’s new value system, which has replaced Confucianism and Buddhism with emperor-centered nationalism. Gordon supports this idea, stating that the anxieties caused by Japan’s modernization push “were met with a turn toward the emperor as a political and cultural anchor.” (Gordon 110) In Kokoro, the extent to which this attitude pervades Japanese society is emphasized given the role of the emperor’s death, and that of General Nogi, in causing the narrator’s father’s death as well as that of Sensei.
The narrator’s father, upon hearing of Emperor Meiji’s death, sees it as a harbinger of his own death and loses his optimism and vigor:
“When the newspaper announcing the Emperor’s death arrived, my father said: ‘Oh! Oh!’ And then ‘Oh, His Majesty is gone at last. I too…’ My father then fell silent.” (Sōseki 91)
Sensei’s reaction was similar, albeit more eloquently expressed: he
“felt as though the spirit of the Meiji era had begun with the Emperor, and had ended with him. [He] was overcome with the feeling that [he] and the others, who had been brought up in that era, were now left behind to live as anachronisms.” (Sōseki 245)
General Nogi’s act of junshi afterward would ultimately inspire Sensei to take his own life. This decline in the physical and mental health of the narrator’s father and Sensei is abrupt and without warning, ostensibly triggered by the death of the Emperor. Pollack adds, “it should be noted that in Sōseki’s day the ancient feudal notion of following one’s master in death was already so antiquated as to seem almost outlandish.” (Pollack 418) The reasoning for these deaths seems absurd and out of place, perhaps even suggesting criticism on Sōseki’s part of Japan’s growing emperor-centered nationalism. Rubin agrees with this point albeit with a caveat, contending that that Sōseki “would certainly have balked at the suggestion that individuals should willingly lay down their lives for the state, but he was undoubtedly very moved” when General Nogi committed junshi. (Rubin & Sōseki, 22)
Thus, to truly understand Sōseki’s thoughts, we must understand why Sensei chose to die. Japanese literary critic Jun Etō argues that “Sensei, an isolated individual, tried to recover his identity with the nation by committing junshi for ‘the spirit of Meiji’.” (Fukuchi 480) Yet Oketani argues that Sōseki considered Nogi’s junshi an “old, unnecessary act.” (Fukuchi 482) To reconcile Etō and Oketani’s disparate views, Wayne State University academic Isamu Fukuchi argues that “to understand why Sensei decided to die is to understand his feeling, the feeling of a Meiji intellectual.” (Fukuchi 485) In the coming blog post, we’ll do just that.
The next blog post, Individualism in Modern Japan, will break down Sōseki’s disapproval of doing everything for the state, and why Sōseki was moved by General Nogi’s junshi.
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