The Limits of Existential Therapy in the Fiction of Nakamura Fuminori
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Date
2016-02-23
Authors
Murnion, Stephen
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Written within an existentialist mode, Nakamura Fuminori’s early fictional works lend themselves to be read as therapeutic technologies reaching out to Japanese youth whose lives are marked by anxiety, isolation, and precariousness. Because English-language scholarship on Nakamura is lacking, this thesis analyzes two of his novels – Child of Dirt and Evil and the Mask – in order to introduce how Nakamura understands the human, how his texts function formally as therapeutic technologies, and how, in the final analysis, they exhibit a nascent sexism that borders on misogyny.
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Keywords
Child abuse, Contemporary literature, Existentialism, Japan, Lost Generation, Therapy