Notes

ABOUT KENZEBURO OE
-" Kenzaburo Oe was born on 31 January 1935 in a village called Ose on the island of Shikoku, the third son of a prominent samurai family."
-"In a country never before vanquished, he is the only major writer ever to receive a secondary education under what was actually American occupation, following curricula devised by education specialists at the American GHQ and accumulating knowledge from books censored by them. The aim of that education was the rejection of traditional Japanese values in favor of the American value system. Receiving that education, Oe became a strong proponent of democracy and a supporter of the new constitution, advocating them in writing and lectures. He became the spokesman for his generation in the new age and has been active in anti-establishment, human rights and humanitarian movements, demonstrating in the streets and staging hunger strikes.

JAPAN BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR
-"Because he had been taught that Emperor Hirohito was a living god, he was astounded on 15 August 1945 to hear the Emperor go on the radio and announce Japans surrender. The strange and disappointing fact was that the Emperor spoke in a human voice like any ordinary man."
-"The defeat in World War II was a source of humiliation and guilt that the Japanese collectively suffered for a decade or more, a shame renewed daily by the presence of the Occupation forces, by the war trials, by the deprivation of daily necessities and by bombed-out city blocks. Powerful machinery was at work in General Douglas MacArthur's general headquarters to erase militarism from Japan forever, and the Japanese went through a long period of self-flagellation over the guilt of their militant past and of self-loathing for their new fifth-rate status."

OE AND HIS WORKS POSTWAR
-"Oe said that the defeat, the feeling of being brought to his knees, "took seed" in August 1945 and grew into a lasting obsession in him and that only through literature could he cope with this obsession and manage to survive. [...] A boy of Oe's sensitivity and precocity was bound to be deeply affected. The antiheroes of his early works - who resemble the author in many aspects - reflect the psychological ravages of that era. In one short story, "Human Sheep" (1958), Oe describes a humiliating incident that a student of French like himself suffered on a bus at the hands of some American GI's."
-"Shortly after August 1945, a more encompassing censorship than the wartime publications code was clamped on the Japanese, and textbooks were probed with particular care for traces of militarism and emperor worship. The national education system was also revised [...] The curriculum had been changed and he was no longer taught morality - a reading in anecdotes illustrative of traditional virtues such as filial piety and loyalty. The hour was devoted instead to the study of the new constitution speedily prepared by the order of the GHQ in the mold of the American constitution. Oe's class, in addition, was given books on democracy and taught the subject by teachers recently returned from the war."
-" Oe's favorite book since childhood has been The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a copy of which was given to him during the war. Despite the emperor worship and wartime anti-Americanism, Huck Finn immediately became Oe's hero. What won Oe's lasting admiration was the agonizing decision Huck makes not to reveal the whereabouts of a run- away slave and to "go to Hell" instead. To a boy accustomed to being asked, "What would you do if the Emperor commanded you to die?" and not totally convinced of the sincerity of his answer, "I would cut open my belly and die, Sir," this was a supreme act of courage."
-"Deeply affected by Kiyoteru Hanada's doctrines, Oe later used Hanadian dialectics and heeded the critic's urging to writers not to neglect native traditions such as folklore in their pursuit of Western inspirations for their work. In his fiction he employed motifs from folklore such as festivals, sacrifices and burial rites and wrote two major novels based on the myths of his village and the history of his ancestors at a time when other writers were "foreignizing" characters and locales to make their work cosmopolitan. [...] When he began writing short stories four years later, they were masterfully plotted and proportioned."