AKUTAGAWA RYUNOSUKE : THE INNER STRUGGLE

Abstract

Akutagawa was fond of these two lines. In reading his works 60 years after he committed suicide at the age of 35, one is also struck by the vividness of these two lines in expressing his feeling of loneliness and helplessness. Many articles and essays have been written, but few are as concise or as poignant as these lines in explaining Akutagawa's decision to take his own life. He was lonely; yet, he chose not to reveal his unhappiness to the world. Akutagawa Ryunosuke was born in the Meiji era. He established himself as a writer in the Taisho period. His suicide took place in the beginning of the Showa period. During his lifetime, he eyewitnessed vast social transformations. At the end of the Meiji period, Japan was already one of the great military powers. It defeated China in 1895, and Russia in I 905. The success of the Meiji restoration did not stop despite the death of the Meiji emperor in 1912. The Taisho period saw further economic development and the influence of Russian revolutionary thought and Western democratic ideas. These ideas presented a challenge to Japanese traditional thinking. The problem of identity appeared. Without exception, Akutagawa found himself thrown into an era of uncertainty. The Right wanted imperialism for the nation; the Left fought for a more equal society. In the literary scene, the Naturalists, the Idealists, Shirakabahas, the Intellectualists, and the Proletariat all vied for greater influence. The erosion of traditional values and the absence of a new consensus in society created an identity vacuum. Intellectuals such as Akutagawa were the first to be aware of these changes. They were divided as to the direction that society should take. Akutagawa himself was puzzled as to what Japanese society was going to be like. As an intellectual, he may have felt obliged to point out a new direction for the society he dwelt in. In the suicide note that he wrote to a friend, he said: "All that I feel is a kind of vague uneasiness. An uneasiness about my future."