近代社会環境への警笛 : 夏目漱石の場合

概要

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This paper attempts to review the ways in which Soseki Natsume portrayed his indictments of Japanese society. Soseki's critique was concerned with the speed at which Western ideas were being inculcated into Japan. He writes with a sense of crisis; for example, in Sanshiro Ogawa's statement that "Meiji thought had been reliving three hundred years of Western history in the space of forty" (Sanshiro). Consider also Ichiro Nagano's sentiments "Man's insecurity stems from the advance of science" and "It is frightening because the fate which the whole of humanity will reach in several centuries, I must go through-in my own lifetime-and at that all alone" (The Wayfarer). Daisuke Nagai's criticism predicts the results of this unreasonable rate of development : "A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile" (And Then). While the Meiji era was one in which Japan insatiably sought to import Western constructs of social order and culture, recurring depictions in novels, lectures, diary entries, and other forms of expression of Soseki's strong concerns about the climate in which this was taking place reveal that he was establishing the concept of individualism and simultaneously taking great pains to determine how one could successfully adapt to society.
2006-09-30