In The Exploration Of Chaos

Ever since his appearance in the Japanese literary community in the1970s, FuruiYoshikichi has been famous for his prolificacy and accomplishments. Reflections onreality, focus on individual existence and description of the protagonists’ inner worldin his novels serve as a mirror of the mentality of the whole society. With his earlyproductions as research subjects, this thesis tries to explore Furui Yoshikichi’sout-of-crisis attempts by observing his cognition of survival crisis in the modernsociety in terms of man-and-woman relations, chronic and dimensional structures.Chapter One: Combing through Furui Yoshikichi’s experience.Furui Yoshikichi spent his adolescence and youth in turmoil and confusion,which provides him with a unique perspective into reality and life. The air raids in hischildhood not only abruptly destroyed the continuity of subsistence but also broughthim eternal apprehension. What’s more, he had to witness with his own eyes what aheavy impact it could pose on people if the significance of life was lost. Having livedthrough the struggle over the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty as well as the ZenkyotoMovement, he found fanaticism lurking behind any form of movements and it wasjust fanaticism that led to the loss of reason and the self during wars. Furui Yoshikichinever took part in any movement whatsoever. Instead, he began mountain climbingon a regular basis, with a view to calmly examing the self and contemplating on thetruth of living in natural surroundings.Chapter Two: Focusing on Furui Yoshikichi’s transformation from a Germanliterature translator to a writer of the Introverted Generation.Firstly, this thesis succeeded in specifying the characteristics and formationreasons of this literary genre by categorizing Furui Yoshikichi into the IntrovertedGeneration. Based on former researches, this thesis also reconstructs the typicalfeature of the Introverted Generation. That is, Furui Yoshikichi and hiscontemporaries didn’t employ grand narration in their literary works, but this didn’tnecessarily mean they were the least concerned about what it was like in the realworld. Rather, they paid much attention to the subsistence of ordinary individuals andtried to recognize crises clouded under daily life, thus confronting truth anddifficulties of the self.Secondly, this thesis also discussed the influence of German literature on FuruiYoshikichi. Before he became a professional writer, Furui Yoshikichi had been atranslator and researcher in German literature for many years. The scrupulousframework and unique narrative time sequence of German literature had left a deepimpression on him as well as updated his knowledge of literary. Besides being heavilyinfluenced by the Nobel Literature Laureate Robert Musil in content and form, FuruiYoshikichi also adopted a new approach to stylistic innovation based on Essayismadvocated by Mr. Musil.Chapter Three: Analysing the men/women images and their relations in FuruiYoshikichi’s novels.In Furui Yoshikichi’s narration of characters, he always attached greatimportance to the common grounds of groups instead of individual differences. To be more specific, female characters in Furui Yoshikichi’s productions tend to displayuncertainty of self-awareness and susceptibility to irrational emotions; while the malecharacters, isolation and estrangement. Those men and women who were typical ofthe time, like numerous reflecting points, together mirror the general status quo of theentire community. In his early productions, men and women relations were always thefocus of the story. They fell in love in an isolated world, mutually appealing as wellas repelling. What’s worse, the hatred and despise can even turn into motive ofmurder. Love intertwined with hatred, Furui Yoshikichi’s depict of the relationshipbetween the two opposite sexes is always intensively suffocating, which alsofunctions as a metaphor of isolated individuals.Chapter Four: Discussing the dimensional as well as chronic structure in FuruiYoshikichi’s novels.There are roughly three kinds of dimensions in Furui Yoshikichi’s novels, namelynatural settings with mountains and rivers, shuttered apartment and newly-builtresidential quarters on the outskirts of the city, which respectively represent open,closed and harmonious state of living. By combing dimensions with self-existenceand ego-other relations, Furui Yoshikichi attached great importance to the oppressionof the self from enclosed space in his books. Additionally, the newly-built residentialquarters are of special significance in Furui Yoshikichi’s works. They are not only theintersections of city and countryside, but also symbolic space of a harmoniouscoexistence between past and present along with traditional customs and moderncivilizations. In terms of the chronic structure, the complicated narrative timesequence of Furui Yoshikichi has left a visible brand on every book of his. FuruiYoshikichi also attached great importance to the description of psychological timesequence from a subjective point of view by connecting human beings’ timeawareness with life experience. In his novels, two major methods are usually adoptedto reconstruct the chronic order of story-telling. They are the stream of consciousnesswhich can demonstrate chaotic feelings of existence by creating time stagnation, andthe chronic order configuration which can restore time continuity by integrating pastmemories and present stories.Chapter Five: Expounding on Furui Yoshikichi’s linguistic cognition and stylisticfeatures as well his profound intention of innovative breakthroughs in languages andstylistics.When everyone else think the pursuit of scientific and rational languages themainstream of time, Furui Yoshikichi conversely called on people to respect the innervitality of languages. He paid more attention to the imaginativeness andevocativeness of languages rather than their functions of message transferring.Therefore, apart from exerting the expressiveness of Japanese language to the full,Furui Yoshikichi employed a variety of rhetoric devices and emotional phrasing totouch the bottom of heart of every reader. He, too, broke away from the reins ofstereotyped novel writing by quoting classical Japanese and using the traditional kanaso as to shorten the distance between his novels and non-fictional styles like essays.Furui Yoshikichi made these attempts in the hope of restoring the original vitality oflanguages by freeing them from rigid frameworks. In Furui Yoshikichi’s novels, one can find not only allusions and adaptations of both western and eastern classics orlegends, but quotations of traditional beliefs and customs. By assimilating enormousamount of traditional culture and integrating traditional materials with modern texts,Furui Yoshikichi aimed at setting up a passage connecting the past and the present viathe vehicle of language. And this also demonstrates his efforts in overcoming crisesand restoring the continuity of subsistence.