| Kawabata's long and distinguished literary career reveals a dazzling display of technique applied to a wide variety of subject matters and themes. However, it is as a traditionalist that Kawabata is perhaps best remembered in Japan and abroad. Most of Kawabata's major works demonstrate traditional Japanese aesthetic elements: mystical and lyrical qualities and unique relationship between life and death influenced by Buddhist thought. Nevertheless, the feel and style in his works are very modern. Kawabata's use of time and space and a variety of other literary devices is almost avant-garde. This mixture of two seemingly contradictory strains, traditional and modern, characterizes Kawabata's unique work.;Kawabata's "feelings of being an orphan" profoundly effected the formation of his Eastern philosophy of life. Close examination of the sources and attributes of Kawabata's orphan complex in his early and autobiographical works illuminates the way in which Kawabata came to form both his image of ideal womanhood and his belief in the transmigration of souls. His use of the Buddhist teaching on transmigration gave his work a mysterious quality wherein the boundary between life and death is blurred.;Kawabata was also involved with the Neo-Perceptionist movement which was influenced by Dadaism, Futurism and German Expressionism. Kawabata's involvement with this Japanese literary movement effected the "traditional" quality of his work. A close analysis of Kawabata's palm-of-the-hand stories makes it clear that Kawabata's involvement in this anti-traditional avant-garde movement did not weaken his traditional sensibilities, but rather resulted in strengthening them, because the modern techniques he gravitated towards allowed him to express lyrical and mystical sentiments by omitting explanations and using sophisticated symbolism. |
