A Study On Yoshimoto Banana's Works

Yoshimoto Banana,formerly known as Yoshimoto Masako,was born in Tokyo in 1964.Her works are mainly novels as well as essays,prose,travel notes,conversations and so on.In the late 1980 s and the early 1990 s,she won a critical role in contemporary Japanese literary world.This thesis focuses on the study of Yoshimoto Banana's works.The context of Yoshimoto Banana's works,the expressive techniques of “surrealism” and “dream”,and the themes of “travel” and “happiness”,the “castrated” male image and the “deviant” female image are mainly studied to explore its uniqueness and causes from many perspectives such as history,economy and culture.Yoshimoto Banana's works were popular in the period of post-industrial society in Japan,and its popularity itself became one of the landmark phenomena in Japan's entry into the post-industrial society.The reason is that Yoshimoto Banana expresses correctly the state of life in the post-industrial era,including both the state of external life and internal psychology.Judging from the context of literary history,Yoshimoto Banana has inherited the “monoaware” and “yugen” in Japanese literary tradition,and has made many transformations on the Japanese literary tradition.With delicate brushstrokes,she applies the aesthetic consciousness of “monoaware” to the fields of love,affection,society and nature.The traditional Japanese aesthetics of “monoaware” penetrated all her works,and with it,she explores the beauty of “monoaware” in modern life and makes it inheritable.Through the narrative techniques of divination,mysticism,telepathy,dream and reality,Yoshimoto Banana has inherited the traditional Japanese “yugen” beauty consciousness in a novel and unusual narrative way.The essence is still to convey the real life experience of people in post-industrial society through imagination.In Yoshimoto Banana's works,“surrealism” has been made into a spiritual system,which constitutes an important part of her literary style.From the perspective of “surrealism” philosophy,it is a kind of ability or a kind of way to perceive the world,including the choice to live out of this world or to return to real life and the choice to face death with an open mind,and even to appreciate death,which is the unique death perspective in Yoshimoto Banana's novels;and the ecological outlook whereby humanity need to truly respect nature,enjoy nature,and to be harmonized with nature,so that nature can react upon humans and help them.From the perspective of “surrealism” imagery,there are a lot of imageries of “water” and “moon” in her works.“Water” often indicates the opposition between this world and the other world,but on the other hand,it is also a bridge connecting this world with the other world,where the living and the dead can meet.And those lost lives seem to be connected by the moon hanging high in the night sky,which seems to unify the Yin and Yang in the dark.There is always a mysterious color in the description of the moon.From the “surrealism” aesthetics,color and sound are mysterious and amazing,which is also the beautification of “surrealism” imagery.Yoshimoto Banana has her own unique understandings of dreams.She does not merely express the subconsciousness of characters through dreams.In her novels,there are two typical descriptions of dreams: the dreams projected by real life and the dreams fused with history,reality and future space-time,which are very mysterious.The former can be explained by Freud's theory of dreams,that is,dreams are the representations of the subconsciousness and projections of real life.The latter is to think of dreams as an important part of life.First of all,it constitutes the life itself together with the reality when awake,and then it will magically affect the reality when awake,and even the reality becomes a projection of dreams.That is to say,in the text world created by Yoshimoto Banana,reality can be the transformation of dreams in the material world.This is perhaps the most brilliant and unrestrained aspect of Yoshimoto Banana's imagination and the most wonderful mystery of her novel's literary charm.Dreams are not only integrated with real time and space,but also with historical and future time and space.Dreams are the time and space connection between this world and the other world.The objects appearing in the dream are actually different from the actual ones,but in the minds of the dreamers,the two will be unconsciously combined to produce some misunderstandings in reality.This is a real dream,and a dream mixed with memories,which is considered a skill that Yoshimoto Banana uses to extend the narrative space.Travel is not only the escape from “home” but also the return to “home” –from the symbolic meaning,it is the return to the “home of spirit”;from the practical significance,it is a vital part in the return to the “home” of matter.Travel often acts as the narrative function of characters' escaping from reality in Yoshimoto Banana's novels.These travels have two wonderful traits: one is that the fleeting scenery seems to be eternal in time and space,and the other is that petty happiness will become an unforgettable memory.In the end,whether it is a journey of love or affection,the memories of the past often connect people together,and travel becomes a grand return.The traveler is no longer pursuing a “different life”,but a return to everyday life.Pursuing happiness is a positive psychological experience and social need.Yoshimoto Banana's works is calling for people to discover warmth,seek comfort and happiness in a fast-paced,almost cruel material-oriented modern society.The process of seeking happiness is destined not to be a smooth path,but should be a mental journey of constant self-redemption,constant self-realization,and obtaining new life.From the anticipation of a happy future in Moon Shadow,“happiness” has been continuously sought.In the process of feeling happiness,the characters can always experience happiness from love,family and daily life.Love can even change the course of life.The happiness given by love emotion is the feeling being with the loved.It is to return to the original,simplest origin from the complicated world covered by dust.In Yoshimoto Banana's works,the family forms are diverse,and the inherent blood family view is gradually weakened.The works depict the importance of family happiness to the current distressed urbanites,which can make the mind consoled and the heart cured.In addition,Yoshimoto Banana boldly pursues happiness by seeking it from different perspectives,experiencing it,and sharing it with us.Almost every piece of work can be considered a way to pursue happiness.With the lapse of creation time,the understanding of happiness has become more and more profound—happiness has nothing to do with money,status,and fame and fortune.It is a real feeling from the heart and a daily grasp of life.The most prominent feature of the “happiness” theme in Yoshimoto Banana's works is the purification of ordinary or peculiar daily life from the long lapse of time,making time sacred,thus making everyday life poetic.The most important feature of male characters in Yoshimoto Banana's novels is the lack of “manliness” or “masculinity” in general understanding.From the traditional gender perspective,the males in her works are “unlike males”.But this is by no means that Yoshimoto Banana has a lack of affection or discrimination towards the images she has written.The fact that she sets the male images in her works shows a deeper perspective and cultural history context.The male images in her works are mostly handsome and delicate,which seems to have a natural closeness with flowers and trees.They are appearing “feminine” in both external image and character.The “family” written by Yoshimoto Banana is no longer a family with a blood relationship as a link in the traditional sense,but a sloppier and freer combination,or a “disparate family”.Men in the family include two categories: one is father,and the other is non-father member of the family,such as a younger brother,a brother,and so on.Most of the “fathers” appear as a background image.The “father” in the family appears to be almost “transparent” in front of multiple stereoscopic female images,since the elements they have can be quickly discovered by the readers,and their traits are often single,not as rich and diverse as female images.If the aesthetic characteristic of the male characters in Yoshimoto Banana's novels is called “deficiency”,then the aesthetic characteristic of the female characters in her novels can no doubt be summed up by “sufficiency”.This “sufficiency” is manifested not only in a strong,unruly personality,but also in the surreal ability.These “sufficiency” bring trouble to women,and allow them to work hard to break free from troubles.In Yoshimoto Banana's novels,a group of women with super powers are created.Generally speaking,they can be divided into three categories: the first category is the women on the fringe of society who have experienced a tragic encounter,and finally obtained a cure through their own strength.The second category is the women who have the power to manipulate certain forces in nature.They have the spirituality of nature,live a life without conflict in a place far away from the hubbub,but connect with urban life through some channels as well.The third category is the mysterious women outside the material world.Their appearance often provides a healing possibility for the hero,which is the key to the hero's switch from the end of painful despair to the beginning of a new life.In Yoshimoto Banana's works,especially the stories of women as the first person,abnormal love occupies a staggering proportion.In her novels,incest,homosexuality,extramarital affairs,and trio mixes are commonplace,but Yoshimoto Banana does not have a moral evaluation of such distorted love.Yoshimoto Banana even believes that the love that crosses various restrictions is true love.The women in her works are mostly young women,who can be roughly divided into two categories according to their personalities.One category is the gentle,kind,and pretty girl,and the other category has a much more distinctive personality,such as Sui in N·P and Tugumi in Thrush.They are arrogant and rebellious,but they often have a strong will and rich emotions.The girls in Yoshimoto Banana's works have often experienced separation and death,and suffered the pain of losing their loved ones,but they rethink their relationship with the world through travels,the help of others,constant dialogues with themselves in their dreams,and super powers.Finally,they were healed by the trauma of the soul.Apart from that,as opposed to the girl,Banana also portrays the image of a group of mothers(or grandmothers).Different from father's absence in family life,mothers often play an important role in a family in Yoshimoto Banana's works.The mothers can also be roughly divided into two categories.One is the mother showing the beauty of maternal nature,who will bear the responsibility and obligation of a mother,and will never give up in raising and cultivating their children with great efforts even though they suffer a major blow from reality(such as the failure of love and marriage,bereavements,etc.).The second category is the irresponsible mother.After being abandoned by men,they are unable to raise their children,and even have a trace of hatred for their unborn baby.Children of such mothers often have a tragic fate.Yoshimoto Banana focuses more on the image of the first category of mothers,and highlights their modern femininity.Hence this kind of mother image is not an understanding wife and loving mother in the traditional impression.They bear the responsibility of being a mother,and they also dare to cross the family bondage to pursue their own personality,the freedom of love and the success in their career.Hence in Yoshimoto Banana's concept,one of the ways for women to seek psychological cure is to integrate into modern society,achieve their own value in work and gradually heal the trauma of their own soul.Yoshimoto Banana confirms the mother's pursuit of freedom,love,personality and career as a modern woman.After being traumatized,they can seek the cure and integrate themselves into society and the family.The portrayal of these women's images proves that Yoshimoto Banana highly affirms and repositions modern women's qualities.In short,the abundance and popularity of Yoshimoto Banana's works is one of the remarkable phenomena in the Japanese literary circle at the turn of the century.The creation and popularity of her novels have their own contemporaneity,specifically the social customs,psychological conditions and reading habits of the public in the post-industrial era.Yoshimoto Banana's “literary talent” can be appreciated from three levels: skill level,psychological level,art level.The character portrayed in her works has a strong individuality in the “gender” dimension.How to evaluate the “healing” nature of Yoshimoto Banana's works is critical to the essence of literature.