| On April 16th,1972, Kawabata died intestate, leaving his researchers endless explanation from different angles in the following 30 years. Focusing on Kawabata's literature works and thus approaching his spiritual world and his exsistence philosophy,the thesis tries to probe his viewpoints towards life and death.In Japan, the female worship has a long history in the traditional culture background,leading to the national collective unconciousness,which is a special kind of cultural Oedipus Complex. It secretly influenced and sometimes even controlled the writers' thoughts and artistic behaviors. As for Kawabata,the lack of maternal love as an orphan and the failure in his first love stimulated his Oedipus Complex unconscionsly and formed his unique aesthetic taste toward the female.In his literature works like "Snow Country" and "Thousand Cranes", the ideal female in his mind was vividly presented. One heroine showed her dedication regardless of any utilitarean aim and the other is the embodiment of purified beauty,both of them gave the hero in each novel great shock and the last salvation.To the ideal females, Kawabata expressed his admiration and worship.For Kawabata,the female is the most pure and beauty being,while diffusing endless regret and reminding people of the vast sorrow and nihility.This sentimental attitudes towards the female had a close relation with Japan's traditional aesthetic background. He integreted the traditional aesthetic pursuits with his own sorrowful experience and thus developed his characteristic style of sentimental beauty,which is clearly reflected in his novels. A life time of frustration or the sad outcome to the heroines in blossom is the right foot note for his sentimental beauty style.Under the influence of the sentimental beauty and Japan's dhyna sect, Kawabata looked death as one zenith life state. He often runinated over and even took delight from the thought of death.In his melancholy thoughts he got some ideas like "impermanenc", "nihility" from Japan's dhyne sect and formulated his viewpoints towards death which was the ultimate beauty. All the things are identical, then according to D·T·Suzuki's idea, the identity is cosmic unconsciousness, which is the root of the universe and the origin of the life current, as well as the eternity beyond time and space.The ancient Japanese culturre is very tolerant of the works about the theme of "sex" and "love" in literature. With the development of the theme, "the lust for sex and love" formed gradually one aesthetic pursuit in the medieval ages. Followed the traditional aesthetic pursuit, Kawabata exploited the potential of the theme to seek the meaning of life and death, by which he had the female worship pierced and realized eventually it was nihility and impermanence that lie behind death. Therefore he lifted himself to a new philosophical state of life. "Sex" in his mind is a identification for his aesthetic pursuit of the sentimental beauty and death beauty.According to the above-mentioned statement, the following clues can be easily found in Kawabata's works:1, The aesthetic pursuit of the ideal female beauty, of the sentimental beauty and that of death beauty.2 ,"Sex" as a medium from his viewpoints towards the female and death.3 ,The clues of "Mononoaware and Sabi".4,The spiritual pursuit from individual unconsciousness, collective unconsciousness till cosmic unconsciousness.The hesitation and the hardship along his life journey is not easy to be fully appreciated. Fortunate or not, after numerous frustrations he managed to achieved his spiritual realm of freedom, that is, the cosmic unconsciousness, which made him approach his destiny calmly and even actively. He died merging the solitary, temporary "self" into the vast eternal universe and thus achieved the perfect harmony. It is in this way that he put his nihility philosophy and aesthetics into practice. In all, his contribution lies not only in constructing the transcultural bridge between the east and the west but in t... |
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