A Personal Matter, Kanzaburo Oe (1935-)
Core Course 102-32
Spring 99

Kenzaburo Oe

Kenzaburo Oë was born in a village of Shikoku, one of the four main islands of Japan, in 1935. For several generations, his family had lived in that small village and no one of his clan had ever left to live somewhere else even after the Meiji Restoration. The region has known two major uprisings one before the Meiji Restoration and one after. Oë was only six when the Second World War broke out and his father, a teacher was killed. After the war, he was raised by his mother who encouraged him to read extensively.

Post World War II Japan was a changed society: democratic principles replaced an absolutist Emperor system and mobility became more feasible. Young Oë moved to Tokyo when he was eighteen and the year later he entered Tokyo University to study French Literature under the guide of the Rabelaisian professor Kazuo Watanabe. Oë has an extensive knowledge of French and American literatures.

He was still in school studying French literature  when Oë started writing short stories, novels and essays. Endowed with a sensitive humanistic view, thanks to his study of Renaissance writings, he often depicts tragedies that befell Japan during the war after that, especially against the backdrop of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also knew personal tragedy with the birth of his son Hikari born with a cranial deformity that left him a mentally-handicapped all his life. This traumatic experience is without doubt reflected in Oë's novel A Personal Matter (1964). Oë has written short stories, essays, and novels. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1994.
 

In order the second part of the novel, guide your readings with the following questions:

  1. Chapter 7. Does the relationship of Bird and Himiko help them find peace and solace in their lives?
  2. Chapter 8. What do you think of the relationship between Bird and his wife?
  3. Chapter 9. Did Bird act responsibly in resigning?  What do you think of the relationship between Bird and the radio producer?
  4. Chapter 10. To what extent is the matter collective and not personal? Along along, Bird is accused by various women and he would later recognize that himself that he is selfish (egotistical, 94, 113, 122, egomaniac 131), and most likely the desire (paranoia, 122) to get rid of his difformed son rests on the idea of him being free. How did he overcome such a difficult hurdle?
  5. Chapter 11. Bird and his wife had a difficult sex life. Could we way that the birth of difformed child is the result of such an unfullfilled love between them (133).
  6. Chapter 12. What is the importance of this name Kikuhiko for the baby and Bird's young companion? What did not Bird want the doctors to operate?
  7. Chapter 13. How do you explain Bird's change of heart? What role did the professor (father-in-law) play?



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