Dazai Osamu

, known by his pen name , was a Japanese novelist and author. A number of his most popular works, such as ''The Setting Sun'' (斜陽, ''Shayō'') and '' No Longer Human'' (人間失格, ''Ningen Shikkaku''), are considered modern classics.

His influences include Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Murasaki Shikibu and Fyodor Dostoevsky. His last book, ''No Longer Human'', is his most popular work outside of Japan.

Another pseudonym he used was Shunpei Kuroki (黒木 舜平), for the book ''Illusion of the Cliffs'' (断崖の錯覚, ''Dangai no Sakkaku'').

Early life

Shūji Tsushima was born on June 19, 1909, the eighth surviving child of a wealthy landowner and politician in Kanagi, located at the northern tip of the Tōhoku Region, in Aomori Prefecture. He was the tenth of the eleven children born to his parents. At the time of his birth, the huge, newly completed Tsushima mansion, where he spent his early years, was home to some thirty family members. The Tsushima family was of obscure peasant origins. Dazai's great-grandfather built up the family's wealth as a moneylender, and his son increased it further. They quickly rose in power and, after some time, became highly respected across the region.

Dazai's father, Gen'emon, was a younger son of the Matsuki family, which, due to "its exceedingly 'feudal' tradition," had no use for sons other than the eldest son and heir. As a result, Gen'emon was adopted into the Tsushima family to marry the eldest daughter, Tane. He became involved in politics due to his position as one of the four wealthiest landowners in the prefecture, and was offered membership of the House of Peers. This caused Dazai's father to be absent during much of his early childhood. As his mother, Tane, was ill, Dazai was brought up mostly by the family's servants and his aunt Kiye.

Education and literary beginnings

In 1916, Dazai began his education at Kanagi Elementary. On March 4, 1923, his father Gen'emon died from lung cancer. A month later, in April, Dazai moved to Aomori Junior High School, followed in 1927 by Hirosaki Higher School, a university preparatory school. He developed an interest in Edo culture and began studying gidayū, a form of chanted narration used in ''bunraku''. Around 1928, Dazai edited a series of student publications and contributed some of his own works. He also published a magazine called ''Saibō Bungei'' (''Cell Literature'') with his friends, and subsequently became a staff member of the college's newspaper.

Dazai's success in writing was brought to a halt when his idol, the writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, committed suicide in 1927 at 35 years old. Dazai started to neglect his studies, and spent the majority of his allowance on clothes, alcohol, and prostitutes. He also dabbled in Marxism, which at the time was heavily suppressed by the government.

On the night of December 10, 1929, Dazai made his first suicide attempt, but survived and was able to graduate the following year. In 1930, he enrolled in the French Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University, but promptly stopped studying again. In October, he ran away with a geisha named and was formally disowned by his family.

Nine days after he was expelled from Tokyo Imperial University, Dazai attempted suicide by drowning off a beach in Kamakura with another woman, a 19-year-old bar hostess named . Tanabe died, but Dazai lived. He was rescued by the crew of a fishing boat, and was charged as an accomplice in Tanabe's death. Shocked by the events, Dazai's family intervened to stop the police investigation. His allowance was reinstated, and he was released without any charges. In December, he recovered at Ikarigaseki and married Hatsuyo there.

Leftist movement

In 1929, when the principal of Hirosaki High School was found to have misappropriated public funds, the students, under the leadership of Ueda Shigehiko (Ishigami Genichiro), leader of the Social Science Study Group, staged a five-day strike, which resulted in the principal's resignation and no disciplinary action against the students. Dazai hardly participated in the strike, but in imitation of the proletarian literature in vogue at the time, he summarized the incident in a novel called ''Student Group'' and read it to Ueda. The Tsushima family was wary of Dazai's leftist activities. On January 16 of the following year, the Special High Police arrested Ueda and nine other students of the Hiroko Institute of Social Studies, who were working as activists for Seigen Tanaka's Communist Party.

In college, Dazai met activist Eizo Kudo, and made a monthly financial contribution of ten yen to the Japanese Communist Party. He was expelled from his family after his marriage to Hatsuyo Oyama in order to prevent any association of his illegal activities with his brother Bunji, who was a politician. After his marriage, Dazai was ordered to hide his sympathies and moved repeatedly. In July 1932, Bunji tracked him down, and had him turn himself in at the Aomori Police Station. In December, Dazai signed and sealed a pledge at the Aomori Prosecutor's Office to completely withdraw from leftist activities.

Early literary career

Dazai kept his promise and settled down. He managed to obtain the assistance of Masuji Ibuse, an established writer whose connections helped him get his works published and establish his reputation. The next few years were productive for Dazai. He wrote at a feverish pace and used the pen name "Osamu Dazai" for the first time in a short story called "Ressha" ("列車", "Train"), published in 1933. This story was his first experiment with the I-novel form that later became his trademark.

In 1935 it started to become clear to Dazai that he would not graduate. He also failed to obtain a job at a Tokyo newspaper. He finished '' The Final Years'' (''Bannen''), which was intended to be his farewell to the world, and tried to hang himself on March 19, 1935, failing yet again. Less than three weeks later, he developed acute appendicitis and was hospitalized. In the hospital, he became addicted to Pavinal, a morphine-based painkiller. After fighting the addiction for a year, in October 1936 he was taken to a mental institution, locked in a room and forced to quit cold turkey.
The treatment lasted over a month.

During this time Dazai's wife Hatsuyo committed adultery with his best friend Zenshirō Kodate. This eventually came to light, and Dazai attempted to commit ''shinjū'' (joint suicide) with his wife. They both took sleeping pills, but neither died. Soon after, Dazai divorced Hatsuyo. He quickly remarried, this time to a middle school teacher named Michiko Ishihara ( 石原美知子). Their first daughter, Sonoko ( 園子), was born in June 1941.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Dazai wrote a number of novels and short stories that are autobiographical in nature. His first story, ''Gyofukuki'' (魚服記, "Transformation", 1933), is a grim fantasy involving suicide. Other stories written during this period include ''Dōke no hana'' (道化の花, "Flowers of Buffoonery", 1935), ''Gyakkō'' (逆行, "Losing Ground", 1935), ''Kyōgen no kami'' (狂言の神, "The God of Farce", 1936), an epistolary novel called ''Kyokō no Haru'' (虚構の春, ''False Spring'', 1936) and the stories in the collection ''Bannen'' (1936; ''Declining Years'' or ''The Final Years''), which describe his sense of personal isolation and his debauchery.

Wartime years

Japan widened the Pacific War by attacking the United States in December 1941, but Dazai was excused from the draft because of his chronic chest problems, as he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The censors became more reluctant to accept his work, but he managed to publish anyway. A number of the stories that he published during the war are retellings of stories by Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693). Dazai's wartime works include ''Udaijin Sanetomo'' (右大臣実朝, "Minister of the Right Sanetomo", 1943), ''Tsugaru'' (1944), ''Pandora no Hako'' (パンドラの匣, ''Pandora's Box'', 1945–46), and ''Otogizōshi'' (お伽草紙, ''Fairy Tales'', 1945) in which he retells a number of Japanese fairy tales.

Dazai's house was burned down twice in the American bombing of Tokyo, but his family escaped unscathed and gained a son, Masaki (正樹), who was born in 1944. His third child, his daughter Satoko (里子), who later became a writer under the pseudonym Yūko Tsushima, was born in May 1947.

Postwar career

In the immediate postwar period, Dazai reached the height of his popularity. He depicted a dissolute life in postwar Tokyo in ''Viyon no Tsuma'' (ヴィヨンの妻, "Villon's Wife", 1947), depicting the wife of a poet who had abandoned her and her continuing will to live through hardships.

In 1946, Dazai published a controversial memoir, "Kuno no Nenkan" (Almanac of Pain), in which he describes the immediate aftermath of Japan's defeat and seeks to encapsulate how the Japanese felt at the time. Dazai reaffirmed his loyalty to the Japanese Emperor, Emperor Hirohito and his son Akihito. However, Dazai also expressed his Communist beliefs in this memoir. Dazai also wrote ''Jugonenkan'' (''For Fifteen Years''), another autobiographical piece.

On December 14, 1946, a group of writers that included Dazai was joined by Yukio Mishima for dinner at a restaurant. The latter recalled that on that occasion, he gave vent to his dislike of Dazai. According to a later statement by Mishima:

The disgust in which I hold Dazai's literature is in some way ferocious. First, I dislike his face. Second, I dislike his rustic preference for urban sophistication. Third, I dislike the fact that he played roles that were not appropriate for him.

Other participants at the dinner could not remember if events occurred as Mishima described. They did report that he did not enjoy Dazai's "clowning" and that he and Dazai had a dispute about Ōgai Mori, a writer whom Mishima admired.

In July 1947, Dazai's novel ''Shayo'' (''The Setting Sun'', translated 1956) was published. It depicts the decline of the Japanese nobility after the war. It was partly based on the diary of Shizuko Ōta ( 太田静子), an admirer of Dazai's work who first met him in 1941. The pair had a daughter, Haruko, ( 治子) in 1947.

A heavy drinker, Dazai became an alcoholic and his health deteriorated rapidly. At this time he met Tomie Yamazaki ( 山崎富栄), a beautician whose husband had been killed in the war after just ten days of marriage. Dazai abandoned his wife and children and moved in with Tomie.

Dazai began writing his novel '' No Longer Human'' (人間失格 ''Ningen Shikkaku'', 1948) at the hot-spring resort in Atami. He then moved to Ōmiya with Tomie and stayed there until mid-May 1948, finishing his novel. A quasi-autobiography, it depicts a self-destructive young man who believes that he is disqualified from being human. The book has been translated into several foreign languages.

In the spring of 1948, Dazai worked on ''Goodbye'', a novella scheduled to be serialized in the ''Asahi Shimbun''. It was never finished.

Death

On June 13, 1948, Dazai and Tomie drowned themselves in the rain-swollen Tamagawa Canal, near his house. Their bodies were not discovered until six days later, on June 19, which would have been his 39th birthday. His grave is at the temple of Zenrin-ji, in Mitaka, Tokyo.

At the time, there was a lot of speculation about the incident. Keikichi Nakahata, a kimono merchant who frequented the young Tsushima family, was shown the scene of the suicide by a detective from Mitaka police station. He speculated that "Dazai was asked to die, and he simply agreed, but just before his death, he suddenly felt an obsession with life."

Works

See also

* Dazai Osamu Prize
*List of Japanese writers
*Osamu Dazai Memorial Museum

References

Sources

* O'Brien, James A., ed. ''Akutagawa and Dazai: Instances of Literary Adaptation''. Cornell University Press, 1983.
*
* Ueda, Makoto. ''Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature''. Stanford University Press, 1976.
*
* "Nation and Region in the Work of Dazai Osamu," in Roy Starrs

External links

Osamu Dazai's works in Japanese
on Aozora bunko
*
Osamu Dazai's grave
at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project)
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dazai, Osamu
1909 births
1948 suicides
1948 deaths
20th-century Japanese novelists
Japanese male short story writers
People from the Empire of Japan
Writers from Aomori Prefecture
University of Tokyo alumni
Suicides by drowning in Japan
20th-century Japanese short story writers
20th-century Japanese male writers
Joint suicides
Aomori High School alumni