Abe Kobo: An Exploration On The "Escape" Depicted In The "Urban Series Trilogy"

The common characteristic of Abe Kobo's literary works is to point at the "people",and the relationship between man and society,man and others,man and himself is always the main line in his literary life.In his early works,like "Wall","Red cocoon","Stick" and other works,readers can obviously feel a kind of Kafkaesque deformation,which could be active or passive.But once people get deformation,they have been in the "alienation" state.Society as a community causes the problem.The community is above the individual with its authority,and the people who live in this community are forced to accept the rules of the game.As soon as the community is diseased,people are at the edge of alienation.The tension of People's freedom will continue to strengthen with the degree of social changes.The more social constraints,people's pursuit of freedom is more intense.20c60 s is the golden period of Abe Kobo's literature creation,during this period,three works had been published in succession--"Woman in the Dunes","The face of another","The man without a map",which conveyed the concept of human freedom.Meanwhile,the author had a thorough interpretation of this concept.Therefore,in essence,the works of Abe is a history of human's pursuit of freedom,and he shows his humanistic feelings in the way of "literature involved in life"."Escape" is a means of pursuit of freedom,but also an important theme of the "Urban Series Trilogy",a kind of strategy of "Sisyphus' s tragic spirit".In the author's opinion,the process of escaping is not the result,which is why the trilogy's ending is ambiguous.In the description of the process of "escape",Abe Kobo created many absurd scenes with Avant-garde and bold writing style.But the absurdity is not a purpose,it is just a kind of means.When these absurd scenes and the fates of characters are intertwined,readers will feel a strong aesthetic pleasure.From the aspect of the characters' experience in the novels,most of them are unfortunate,no matter the middle-aged teacher,who fell into the trap and was forced to clear the sand in the cave,the failure detective,or the scientist losing his face,all of them were with tragic temperament.However,the author gave them an optimistic attitude,which made the works realize the turning of the absurd,and gave the readers a sublime feeling in the transcendence.As Camus said,"one must imagine that Sisyphus is happy".