What did Tsukada really save Kiguchi from during the war? Was Tsukada redeemed for his actions by the time of his death?
In the novel Deep River by Shusaku Endo there was a man named Kiguchi who had been involved with the atrocities of war. After reuniting with his war buddy who had been the reason he made it through alive, he encounters the after affects of the war. His friend is dying of his alcohol-induced disease and refuses to be helped. His own actions during the war continue to torture him in his everyday life and his memories of having to eat “the flesh of a dead soldier” in order to survive will forever haunt him (Endo 101). But while he suffers from this horrible plague of emotion, his disease comes at a time that he needed it most. While, on a surface level, his disease is seen as the worst of his problems and that his death is the only thing to fear, in reality his mental state was in far more disarray than his body could ever be. Had he not developed the health problems that he did, he would never have been able to confess his actions to anyone other than his wife. The guilt that he had for his actions ripped away his thirst for life that he previously had even throughout the war. The very act that helped him “to stay alive” was the one that caused his death in the end (101). While the act was his ultimate demise, it also allowed him to open himself up to someone and helped them to see the world differently. Kiguchi was able to realize that he was blessed to have survived the war the way he did and that he was saved from the emotional scars that the war could have left. Tsukada (the war friend) saved his friend from more than just death by disease out there on the Highway of Death, he saved him from the emotional pain that nobody should ever experience.
Taylor Garrett 2/25/11 Are Otsu’s beliefs heretical? Does this book form a type of “Jewel Net”? “’I don’t think God is someone to be looked up to as a being separate from man, the way you regard him. I think he is within man, and that he is a great life force that envelops man, envelops the trees, envelops the flowers and grasses.’” (Endo 119) Otsu’s quote in many ways discusses the same concept that is brought up by Hanh about all religions being part of the others. Otsu’s beliefs match those of not only the Christian view of God being the only god, but also the thought that everyone and everything is interconnected. He is completing Hanh’s process of understanding all the different types of religion to be able to have an understanding of one another and to move from violence to peace. Otsu sees the world as one. He does not necessarily see God as the conventional way that many people may imagine him as. He does not see him as this deity that looks like every other human, but as a spirit that flows through all living things and creates a unity. To him all life is equally important and the same in every way. Although this view is considered heretical by his superiors, it would have made Hanh proud to hear this, as well as Kaza. Kaza will use the concept of the Jewel Net of Indra, where everything is interwoven and even the smallest effect is connected with all other things. This whole book kind of follows that idea. In some ways every single one of the main characters has had a similar incidence affect their lives and it leads all of them to a similar location to solve these pains that they suffer from. Each person gains something from the other person’s pain or strength that helps them recover some sense of what their soul is lacking. They have created that interwoven web that Kaza is so supportive of. Word Count 319
How do Otsu’s beliefs relate to earlier readings. In my opinion, Otsu’s view of religion and Christianity is similar to Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of interbeing. Both felt that Christianity is made up of non-Christian elements. Otsu felt that all the different religions of the world were connected and that God resided in each of them, just in different forms. Otsu said “I think the real dialogue takes place when you believe that God has many faces, and that he exists in all religions” (122). Otsu was trying to conform to an ideal that his teachers had created in their minds. He wanted their approval, to know that he was worthy to be a Christian priest, but his idea of Christianity, and religion, was different from theirs. Where they saw stark unacceptable differences in other religions, he simply saw a different version, or view of the very same concepts. His ideals were regarded as heresy and similarly unacceptable. Otsu noted that this was the problem with European Christianity: it was too logical. “In the final analysis, the faith of the Europeans is conscious and rational, and these people reject anything they cannot slice into categories” (117). I think to Otsu, Christianity was too rigid, and closed-minded. Christians are often regarded as a people who do not take kindly to other’s beliefs or interpretations. This is evident in the many different versions of Christianity here in America: Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, and Episcopalian. Each was unwilling to compromise on different issues and instead, completely separated itself from the rest. Instead, Otsu feels that we all really worship the same God, just in different ways. Polytheistic religions may just separate God into his many characteristics and duties, and make a new god out of each. It simply seems wrong to assume that only one version of one religion is correct, and above all others. What is Mitsuko searching for? Is Enami searching for something as well, possibly a sense of fulfillment?
What are they searching for in India? And what do they find?
What definition of religion/spirituality (as Jayesh Patel describes in his video) is found in these chapters of the book?
By now, the reader realizes that the Japanese tourists are mostly on the trip in search for something, although they do not all know what exactly that is yet—like Mitsuko—because they are driven by a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. Endo illustrates the background of another member of the trip, Kiguchi, a war veteran who lost his comrade that saved his life during their time in Burma to alcoholism (84-103). Next, Endo unveils how poverty-stricken India truly is through the tour guide’s instructions to not give the beggar-children money because “once you gave money to one child, you would be endlessly thronged by the other children” (105). The snobby, ignorant young Sanjos couple are completely oblivious to the reason the children are begging, saying how horrible it is that the “adults send their children out to beg and then sit back and just watch them do it” (105). Although it is obvious t the reader that this couple, “who had no knowledge of such hunger and such poverty,” believe they are above the Indians and cannot comprehend the social and economic issue at hand, even when directly confronted with it (105). The reader easily spots their flaw; however, I cannot help but think that this same problem exists regularly today as well. Many are too quick to pass judgment on the poor and homeless when they see them in the streets, thinking “it’s their own fault” when many time it, in fact, is not and happened for reasons beyond the person’s control.
Like Mitsuko, many are in a state of “spiritual darkness,” always searching for the faint glimmer of light, or like Isobe, some might feel they are in a transition of rebirth (108-109). Isobe “endured the unspeakable loneliness and regret” after his wife’s death; he did not appreciate and love her in the way he wishes he had, for he was too concerned with being embarrassed and Japanese tradition to show her how important she was to him (127). Now, after her death, his mission is to find her again in her new life—he promised her on her deathbed that he would find her when she was reborn—and, clutching to his letter of hope from the University of Virginia, he is in India to fulfill his promise and find her. He is attracted to India for its belief in rebirth—not for Buddhism as the trip suggests. Numada is there for the wildlife and its connection to humans, also a Hindu idea. Mitsuko is drawn into “the India of Hinduism, in which purity and defilement, holiness and obscenity, charity and brutality mingled and coexisted” (151). She feels connected to this Hindu India because she feels the same turmoil and coexistence of oppostite driving forces present within herself, thus her constant emptiness and loneliness and yearning to feel something. None of these tourists are religious; yet, they are all captivated by certain aspects of Hinduism that allow them freedom to pursue their missions (rebirth, wildlife, love, belonging). This is the spirituality that feeds their hunger so they can continue their journey.
What are some of the emotional and psychological effects of Kiguchi’s fighting the war in Burma?
In this particular section of the work “Deep River”, by Shusaku Endo, the life of a world war two veteran named Kiguchi is conveyed in an emotional sense to the reader. During the earlier part of his life, Kiguchi served as a soldier in the Japanese army that was stationed in Burma during the Second World War. While serving in Burma, Kiguchi endured many harsh realities of warfare that stayed with him throughout his life. The things he witnessed and endured in Burma affected him emotionally and psychologically, and he was never the same person after he returned to Japan. After he returned home, he was constantly consumed by the emotions that he still had for the war he fought in Burma. Shusaku writes, “Once back in Japan, however, after resuming his life with his wife and children, every now and then he would be driven to distraction by the emotions that came flooding back” (Shusaku 90). This quote reveals the emotional hardship that Kiguchi still endured on the home front even though he was far removed from the battlefield. Kiguchi also underwent a psychological change, and went from being a gentle person who always responded to others with kindness to one who was quick to become angry. Shusaku describes how Kiguchi often became angry with his children when they complained of whined, and “responded with violence excessive for a father” (Shusaku 90). This quote reveals the psychological toll that war can have on a person, and how it can literally transform their attitude and outlook on the world around them. Kiguchi paid a terrible price in fighting the war in Burma even though he was able to make it out of alive and uninjured. War is a terrible thing to endure, and is of the few things that can literally transform a person from the inside out.
In deep river how are the attitudes of poverty portrayed? What role does spirituality play in the lives of the tourist? In “ Deep river” the common view of poverty is shown by the Japanese Tourists. They view the poor as lower than themselves and they view the customs of India as nonsense. They have also lost their connection with their spirituality. In this tour of India they are having to find a connection to their own spirituality which they are missing in their lives. Without their spirituality they have lost touch with what is truly fulfilling in their lives. Mitusko lives in a world that is completely darkened of spirituality. This void in her life prevents her from living a life that is in any way satisfying for her. She searches for her spirituality through working at the hospital. She is also confronted by the solid faith of Otsu who contrast her in all ways. Otsu describes his faith in god as seeing it being a part of other religions around him. He states that he sees god in all religons and that some aspect of it is embodied within different cultures. He sees the churches of Europe as only categorizing what is and is not Christianity. He views god in this manner“’I don’t think God is someone to be looked up to as a being separate from man, the way you regard him. I think he is within man, and that he is a great life force that envelops man, envelops the trees, envelops the flowers and grasses.’” (Endo 119) Through this he tries to pursue his own spirituality. The sanjos are another group who are indifferent to spirituality and the poverty of the surrounding conditions. They state that the families are “adults send their children out to beg and then sit back and just watch them do it” Endo (105). They also express their distaste for the ashes of the dead being thrown into the river. This shows that they are neglecting spirituality in their youth.
In Plato’s “Ring of Gyges”, the soul is composed of three distinct parts, each with their own characteristics and attributes unique to them. These components, “a colorful, many-headed beast with heads of wild and tame animals” (Plato 559), a lion, and a man (Plato 559), can be seen in “Deep River” by Shusaku Endo. In “The Case of Kiguchi”, the reader is presented with gruesome details of battle and the aftermath of the fighting, particularly how it affects Kiguchi and his comrade, Tsukada. Their methods of trying to re-adapt to civilized culture in post-war Japan are direct results of the stages at which the parts of their souls have developed. For Kiguchi, there came a point where he wanted to die. He resolved himself that “he too would expire here, and disintegrate and return to the earth” (Endo 89). In Kuguchi’s case, the human aspect of his soul embodied all of the frailty of human existence. After his return to Japan, he would lash out against his children, with “violence excessive for a father” (90), but he never lost touch with the human part of his inner-being. He was able to cope better after the war than his friend Tsukada could. Tsukada, a slightly higher-ranking officer than Kiguchi, although he spent the war in the same situation, experienced the war in a drastically different way. Tsukada was forced to result to measures of survival that caused him to do things that would haunt him for the rest of his days, including acts of cannibalism of a fellow solider. Because he had a tendency then to resort to violent outbursts, it is evident that during the war, the battlefield was not behind them in their retreat to Japan. Tsukada fought a war within himself to retain the human element and to not succumb to the animal that grew to “starve and enfeeble the man in him so that so that he gets dragged wherever the animals lead him” (Plato 559). After his return home, Tsukada resorted to drinking, a method of numbing the aspect of humanity within so as to not feel the pain of its enslavement to the beasts of his soul. In effect, Tsukada died from the alcohol’s ravaging on his organs. If it is the human element of himself that he was numbing, the only reason it did not wither away altogether was his connection to others firmly rooted in their humanity, like his friend Kiguchi and Gaston, the hospital attendant who helped him to find peace. {419} Does being around those who have grown the human within their soul have an influence of the state of yours? Is the human aspect related to religion in “The Case of Kiguchi”?
#14 Deep River What brings all of these individuals to India? What prompts an individual to become a particular religion? Each of these individuals has their own story and yet, they are interconnected when they are brought together on this trip to India. Why? They are each fleeing from loss and searching for God/love. Mitsuko is fleeing from the loss of herself. She doesn’t understand who she is and this is the reason she is unable to truly love. Mitsuko’s idea of love is a “non-committal smile . . . her ‘imitation of love’” (Deep River 150). On this journey to India, the things she is exposed to makes her “[want] real love and nothing less” (161). The one event that impacts her the most is seeing the representation of Chamunda. Chamunda “displays all the sufferings of the Indian people . . . she has contracted every illness they have suffered through the years . . . Despite is all, she . . . as she pants for breath, she offers milk to mankind form her shriveled breasts. This is India” (140). Enami shows his interested tourists this site because he wants to stress the importance of what India is; he does not want to simply show them the superficial tour guide of the sacred sights. He also tires of the “narrow-mindedness of his tourists” which is why he “did not want the Japanese tourists gawking at the holy river, the sacred rituals and the hallowed places of death solely out of curiosity” (136). And Enami is not wrong, many of the Japanese “displayed no interest in the Hindu deities” because they “were not Buddhist images” (138). Mitsuko is searching for God in Otsu. He was infatuated with her which is what keeps her coming back in her mind, but subconsciously, she wants to know what it is about God that keeps bringing Otsu back to him. Mitsuko once asked Otsu why he believed in God to which he did not have a good answer. Years later, Otsu says, “I was at a loss for words because I had not chosen my religion of my own free will” (121). Otsu brings up the point of who really chooses what religion they practice? He says, “I think that Europeans have chosen Christianity because it was the faith of their forefathers, and because Christian culture dominated their native lands. You can’t say that the people of the Middle East chose to become Muslims and many Indians became Hindus after conducting rigorous comparisons of their religions with those of other people” (121). Otsu is saying that the environment and culture that we grow up in has a huge impact on what religion we practice. Very rarely to we delve into other religions to find the one that suits us best. Word Count: 467 **Sorry this is late! I finished writing it early on wednesday and forgot all about it last night!!
1. What do Keiko and Otsu have in common? Keiko and Otsu have not been appreciated by the people they care about. When Keiko is dying, her husband Isobe, having lived with her for 35 years, asks to a god he does not believe in: “My wife’s just an ordinary woman of goodness and gentleness. Please save her. I beg you” (10). He does not talk about her as a special, valuable person; for him her only distinctive quality is filling Isobe’s loneliness. Throughout the years, sensing Isobe’s indifference, Keiko has acquired “her trade-mark smile”, a fake and forced expression of wanting to please her husband (15). On her death bed, she is more concerned about Isobe’s conditions than hers – she is telling him: “You needn’t spend so much money one me” (9) and in her diary she has written a list of practical advices to Isobe who has always neglected her. Otsu is “the sort of fellow you feel like playing a joke on just by looking at him. The kind who can’t bring himself to talk to a woman” (35). His school mates make fun of him, because they think he is too Christian, he wears a uniform and does not have good social skills. Mitsuko, a good looking girl, seduces him for the pleasure of seeing the pitiful boy leave his God. She sleeps with him and leaves him. Their time together is described: “Three Sundays that stank like rotten figs passed. As she watched Otsu’s head sway above her, Mitsuko thought of other things” (49). Otsu also has a trade-mark born out of the desire to please people – it is his “sorry”. However, Otsu and Keiko has another trait in common: being rejected by people, they have sought a connection with non-humans; and this connection is precious. Keiko is talking to a ginkgo tree: “Mr Ginkgo, I’ll be dying soon. I envy you. You’ve been alive for over two hundred years now.” (20) The ginkgo teaches her about rebirth and her last words are, “I… I know for sure… I’ll be reborn somewhere in this world. Look for me… find me… promise… promise!” (17). She is certain. Otsu has a connection with God. When Mitsuko meets him in Lyon, he speaks about God: “For the first time Otsu spoke decisively, and he lifted his eyes to look her directly in the face” (64). Although Otsu still keeps saying the pitiful and awkward “sorry”, he is certain about something he believes in. Both Keiko and Otsu have the certainty that Isobe and Mitsuko lack. Although uneasy in relationships with people, they both have a firm spirituality. Whether it makes up for their problematic interactions with people is unknown. 2. Is Mitsuko annoyed by Otsu’s God because she feels lost without anything to cling to? 467 words
Despite the apparent sadness that is evident through this entire novel, I can’t help but sympathize with the characters involved. I believe the main theme of this reading is simply searching. Each character and supporting character is searching. The character that truly touched me is Mr. Tsukada. Tsukada was a friend and fellow comrade of Kiguchi during the war in Burma. Kiguchi describes the desolate returning trip of defeat as “Highway of Death” (Endo 86). He continues to describe the path stating, “The corpses of Japanese soldiers lay piled in heaps on both sides of the road. Maggots swarmed around the noses and lips of the dead, and even of the soldiers who were faintly breath, and from the righty they heard some men cry ‘Kill me!’ The same voice echoed from the left”(87). The atrocities during the war were almost unbearable. Daily, soldiers died from malaria, dysentery, starvation, and other various diseases. This left Kiguchi and Tsukada mentally and emotionally wounded for the rest of their lives. Tsukada then chose liquor to stuff down his emotions from the brutality of war. Tsukada was in search of a way to cope with his actions. Even when confronted by his best friend, Tsukada replies, “Leave me alone . . . . I don’t care if I die!” (94). How else was a proud Japanese man supposed to tell his best friend what he had done? He sat daily searching himself for ways to explain what he had done out of necessity. Ironically, the answer was found thanks to his friend. When Kiguchi is about to leave, hurt by Tsukada’s words, Tsukada decides to tell Kiguchi what he had done. He says, “The meat I ate . . . it was PFC Minamikawa” (97). In order to save himself and his comrade, Tsukada had eaten the dead body of a fallen fellow soldier. This is why he was drinking. He was searching for a way to express his hidden secret. It was only then that Tsukada was able to peacefully accept death. Did Tsukada’s need to tell his secret help keep him alive even though it tormented him daily? What is Kiguchi searching for in India?
Word Count: 364 (this was the daily that I posted on BlackBoard and you told me to move to here)
What did Tsukada really save Kiguchi from during the war?
ReplyDeleteWas Tsukada redeemed for his actions by the time of his death?
In the novel Deep River by Shusaku Endo there was a man named Kiguchi who had been involved with the atrocities of war. After reuniting with his war buddy who had been the reason he made it through alive, he encounters the after affects of the war. His friend is dying of his alcohol-induced disease and refuses to be helped. His own actions during the war continue to torture him in his everyday life and his memories of having to eat “the flesh of a dead soldier” in order to survive will forever haunt him (Endo 101). But while he suffers from this horrible plague of emotion, his disease comes at a time that he needed it most. While, on a surface level, his disease is seen as the worst of his problems and that his death is the only thing to fear, in reality his mental state was in far more disarray than his body could ever be. Had he not developed the health problems that he did, he would never have been able to confess his actions to anyone other than his wife. The guilt that he had for his actions ripped away his thirst for life that he previously had even throughout the war. The very act that helped him “to stay alive” was the one that caused his death in the end (101). While the act was his ultimate demise, it also allowed him to open himself up to someone and helped them to see the world differently. Kiguchi was able to realize that he was blessed to have survived the war the way he did and that he was saved from the emotional scars that the war could have left. Tsukada (the war friend) saved his friend from more than just death by disease out there on the Highway of Death, he saved him from the emotional pain that nobody should ever experience.
Word Count: 318
Taylor Garrett
ReplyDelete2/25/11
Are Otsu’s beliefs heretical?
Does this book form a type of “Jewel Net”?
“’I don’t think God is someone to be looked up to as a being separate from man, the way you regard him. I think he is within man, and that he is a great life force that envelops man, envelops the trees, envelops the flowers and grasses.’” (Endo 119) Otsu’s quote in many ways discusses the same concept that is brought up by Hanh about all religions being part of the others. Otsu’s beliefs match those of not only the Christian view of God being the only god, but also the thought that everyone and everything is interconnected. He is completing Hanh’s process of understanding all the different types of religion to be able to have an understanding of one another and to move from violence to peace.
Otsu sees the world as one. He does not necessarily see God as the conventional way that many people may imagine him as. He does not see him as this deity that looks like every other human, but as a spirit that flows through all living things and creates a unity. To him all life is equally important and the same in every way. Although this view is considered heretical by his superiors, it would have made Hanh proud to hear this, as well as Kaza.
Kaza will use the concept of the Jewel Net of Indra, where everything is interwoven and even the smallest effect is connected with all other things. This whole book kind of follows that idea. In some ways every single one of the main characters has had a similar incidence affect their lives and it leads all of them to a similar location to solve these pains that they suffer from. Each person gains something from the other person’s pain or strength that helps them recover some sense of what their soul is lacking. They have created that interwoven web that Kaza is so supportive of.
Word Count 319
How do Otsu’s beliefs relate to earlier readings.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Otsu’s view of religion and Christianity is similar to Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of interbeing. Both felt that Christianity is made up of non-Christian elements. Otsu felt that all the different religions of the world were connected and that God resided in each of them, just in different forms. Otsu said “I think the real dialogue takes place when you believe that God has many faces, and that he exists in all religions” (122). Otsu was trying to conform to an ideal that his teachers had created in their minds. He wanted their approval, to know that he was worthy to be a Christian priest, but his idea of Christianity, and religion, was different from theirs. Where they saw stark unacceptable differences in other religions, he simply saw a different version, or view of the very same concepts. His ideals were regarded as heresy and similarly unacceptable. Otsu noted that this was the problem with European Christianity: it was too logical. “In the final analysis, the faith of the Europeans is conscious and rational, and these people reject anything they cannot slice into categories” (117). I think to Otsu, Christianity was too rigid, and closed-minded. Christians are often regarded as a people who do not take kindly to other’s beliefs or interpretations. This is evident in the many different versions of Christianity here in America: Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, and Episcopalian. Each was unwilling to compromise on different issues and instead, completely separated itself from the rest. Instead, Otsu feels that we all really worship the same God, just in different ways. Polytheistic religions may just separate God into his many characteristics and duties, and make a new god out of each. It simply seems wrong to assume that only one version of one religion is correct, and above all others.
What is Mitsuko searching for?
Is Enami searching for something as well, possibly a sense of fulfillment?
What are they searching for in India? And what do they find?
ReplyDeleteWhat definition of religion/spirituality (as Jayesh Patel describes in his video) is found in these chapters of the book?
By now, the reader realizes that the Japanese tourists are mostly on the trip in search for something, although they do not all know what exactly that is yet—like Mitsuko—because they are driven by a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. Endo illustrates the background of another member of the trip, Kiguchi, a war veteran who lost his comrade that saved his life during their time in Burma to alcoholism (84-103). Next, Endo unveils how poverty-stricken India truly is through the tour guide’s instructions to not give the beggar-children money because “once you gave money to one child, you would be endlessly thronged by the other children” (105). The snobby, ignorant young Sanjos couple are completely oblivious to the reason the children are begging, saying how horrible it is that the “adults send their children out to beg and then sit back and just watch them do it” (105). Although it is obvious t the reader that this couple, “who had no knowledge of such hunger and such poverty,” believe they are above the Indians and cannot comprehend the social and economic issue at hand, even when directly confronted with it (105). The reader easily spots their flaw; however, I cannot help but think that this same problem exists regularly today as well. Many are too quick to pass judgment on the poor and homeless when they see them in the streets, thinking “it’s their own fault” when many time it, in fact, is not and happened for reasons beyond the person’s control.
Like Mitsuko, many are in a state of “spiritual darkness,” always searching for the faint glimmer of light, or like Isobe, some might feel they are in a transition of rebirth (108-109). Isobe “endured the unspeakable loneliness and regret” after his wife’s death; he did not appreciate and love her in the way he wishes he had, for he was too concerned with being embarrassed and Japanese tradition to show her how important she was to him (127). Now, after her death, his mission is to find her again in her new life—he promised her on her deathbed that he would find her when she was reborn—and, clutching to his letter of hope from the University of Virginia, he is in India to fulfill his promise and find her. He is attracted to India for its belief in rebirth—not for Buddhism as the trip suggests. Numada is there for the wildlife and its connection to humans, also a Hindu idea. Mitsuko is drawn into “the India of Hinduism, in which purity and defilement, holiness and obscenity, charity and brutality mingled and coexisted” (151). She feels connected to this Hindu India because she feels the same turmoil and coexistence of oppostite driving forces present within herself, thus her constant emptiness and loneliness and yearning to feel something. None of these tourists are religious; yet, they are all captivated by certain aspects of Hinduism that allow them freedom to pursue their missions (rebirth, wildlife, love, belonging). This is the spirituality that feeds their hunger so they can continue their journey.
Word Count: 515
What are some of the emotional and psychological effects of Kiguchi’s fighting the war in Burma?
ReplyDeleteIn this particular section of the work “Deep River”, by Shusaku Endo, the life of a world war two veteran named Kiguchi is conveyed in an emotional sense to the reader. During the earlier part of his life, Kiguchi served as a soldier in the Japanese army that was stationed in Burma during the Second World War. While serving in Burma, Kiguchi endured many harsh realities of warfare that stayed with him throughout his life. The things he witnessed and endured in Burma affected him emotionally and psychologically, and he was never the same person after he returned to Japan. After he returned home, he was constantly consumed by the emotions that he still had for the war he fought in Burma. Shusaku writes, “Once back in Japan, however, after resuming his life with his wife and children, every now and then he would be driven to distraction by the emotions that came flooding back” (Shusaku 90). This quote reveals the emotional hardship that Kiguchi still endured on the home front even though he was far removed from the battlefield. Kiguchi also underwent a psychological change, and went from being a gentle person who always responded to others with kindness to one who was quick to become angry. Shusaku describes how Kiguchi often became angry with his children when they complained of whined, and “responded with violence excessive for a father” (Shusaku 90). This quote reveals the psychological toll that war can have on a person, and how it can literally transform their attitude and outlook on the world around them. Kiguchi paid a terrible price in fighting the war in Burma even though he was able to make it out of alive and uninjured. War is a terrible thing to endure, and is of the few things that can literally transform a person from the inside out.
Word Count: 308
In deep river how are the attitudes of poverty portrayed?
ReplyDeleteWhat role does spirituality play in the lives of the tourist?
In “ Deep river” the common view of poverty is shown by the Japanese Tourists. They view the poor as lower than themselves and they view the customs of India as nonsense. They have also lost their connection with their spirituality. In this tour of India they are having to find a connection to their own spirituality which they are missing in their lives. Without their spirituality they have lost touch with what is truly fulfilling in their lives.
Mitusko lives in a world that is completely darkened of spirituality. This void in her life prevents her from living a life that is in any way satisfying for her. She searches for her spirituality through working at the hospital. She is also confronted by the solid faith of Otsu who contrast her in all ways.
Otsu describes his faith in god as seeing it being a part of other religions around him. He states that he sees god in all religons and that some aspect of it is embodied within different cultures. He sees the churches of Europe as only categorizing what is and is not Christianity. He views god in this manner“’I don’t think God is someone to be looked up to as a being separate from man, the way you regard him. I think he is within man, and that he is a great life force that envelops man, envelops the trees, envelops the flowers and grasses.’” (Endo 119) Through this he tries to pursue his own spirituality.
The sanjos are another group who are indifferent to spirituality and the poverty of the surrounding conditions. They state that the families are “adults send their children out to beg and then sit back and just watch them do it” Endo (105). They also express their distaste for the ashes of the dead being thrown into the river. This shows that they are neglecting spirituality in their youth.
wors 339
In Plato’s “Ring of Gyges”, the soul is composed of three distinct parts, each with their own characteristics and attributes unique to them. These components, “a colorful, many-headed beast with heads of wild and tame animals” (Plato 559), a lion, and a man (Plato 559), can be seen in “Deep River” by Shusaku Endo. In “The Case of Kiguchi”, the reader is presented with gruesome details of battle and the aftermath of the fighting, particularly how it affects Kiguchi and his comrade, Tsukada. Their methods of trying to re-adapt to civilized culture in post-war Japan are direct results of the stages at which the parts of their souls have developed. For Kiguchi, there came a point where he wanted to die. He resolved himself that “he too would expire here, and disintegrate and return to the earth” (Endo 89). In Kuguchi’s case, the human aspect of his soul embodied all of the frailty of human existence. After his return to Japan, he would lash out against his children, with “violence excessive for a father” (90), but he never lost touch with the human part of his inner-being. He was able to cope better after the war than his friend Tsukada could. Tsukada, a slightly higher-ranking officer than Kiguchi, although he spent the war in the same situation, experienced the war in a drastically different way. Tsukada was forced to result to measures of survival that caused him to do things that would haunt him for the rest of his days, including acts of cannibalism of a fellow solider. Because he had a tendency then to resort to violent outbursts, it is evident that during the war, the battlefield was not behind them in their retreat to Japan. Tsukada fought a war within himself to retain the human element and to not succumb to the animal that grew to “starve and enfeeble the man in him so that so that he gets dragged wherever the animals lead him” (Plato 559). After his return home, Tsukada resorted to drinking, a method of numbing the aspect of humanity within so as to not feel the pain of its enslavement to the beasts of his soul. In effect, Tsukada died from the alcohol’s ravaging on his organs. If it is the human element of himself that he was numbing, the only reason it did not wither away altogether was his connection to others firmly rooted in their humanity, like his friend Kiguchi and Gaston, the hospital attendant who helped him to find peace.
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Does being around those who have grown the human within their soul have an influence of the state of yours?
Is the human aspect related to religion in “The Case of Kiguchi”?
#14 Deep River
ReplyDeleteWhat brings all of these individuals to India?
What prompts an individual to become a particular religion?
Each of these individuals has their own story and yet, they are interconnected when they are brought together on this trip to India. Why? They are each fleeing from loss and searching for God/love. Mitsuko is fleeing from the loss of herself. She doesn’t understand who she is and this is the reason she is unable to truly love. Mitsuko’s idea of love is a “non-committal smile . . . her ‘imitation of love’” (Deep River 150). On this journey to India, the things she is exposed to makes her “[want] real love and nothing less” (161). The one event that impacts her the most is seeing the representation of Chamunda. Chamunda “displays all the sufferings of the Indian people . . . she has contracted every illness they have suffered through the years . . . Despite is all, she . . . as she pants for breath, she offers milk to mankind form her shriveled breasts. This is India” (140). Enami shows his interested tourists this site because he wants to stress the importance of what India is; he does not want to simply show them the superficial tour guide of the sacred sights. He also tires of the “narrow-mindedness of his tourists” which is why he “did not want the Japanese tourists gawking at the holy river, the sacred rituals and the hallowed places of death solely out of curiosity” (136). And Enami is not wrong, many of the Japanese “displayed no interest in the Hindu deities” because they “were not Buddhist images” (138). Mitsuko is searching for God in Otsu. He was infatuated with her which is what keeps her coming back in her mind, but subconsciously, she wants to know what it is about God that keeps bringing Otsu back to him. Mitsuko once asked Otsu why he believed in God to which he did not have a good answer. Years later, Otsu says, “I was at a loss for words because I had not chosen my religion of my own free will” (121). Otsu brings up the point of who really chooses what religion they practice? He says, “I think that Europeans have chosen Christianity because it was the faith of their forefathers, and because Christian culture dominated their native lands. You can’t say that the people of the Middle East chose to become Muslims and many Indians became Hindus after conducting rigorous comparisons of their religions with those of other people” (121). Otsu is saying that the environment and culture that we grow up in has a huge impact on what religion we practice. Very rarely to we delve into other religions to find the one that suits us best.
Word Count: 467
**Sorry this is late! I finished writing it early on wednesday and forgot all about it last night!!
1. What do Keiko and Otsu have in common?
ReplyDeleteKeiko and Otsu have not been appreciated by the people they care about. When Keiko is dying, her husband Isobe, having lived with her for 35 years, asks to a god he does not believe in: “My wife’s just an ordinary woman of goodness and gentleness. Please save her. I beg you” (10). He does not talk about her as a special, valuable person; for him her only distinctive quality is filling Isobe’s loneliness. Throughout the years, sensing Isobe’s indifference, Keiko has acquired “her trade-mark smile”, a fake and forced expression of wanting to please her husband (15). On her death bed, she is more concerned about Isobe’s conditions than hers – she is telling him: “You needn’t spend so much money one me” (9) and in her diary she has written a list of practical advices to Isobe who has always neglected her.
Otsu is “the sort of fellow you feel like playing a joke on just by looking at him. The kind who can’t bring himself to talk to a woman” (35). His school mates make fun of him, because they think he is too Christian, he wears a uniform and does not have good social skills. Mitsuko, a good looking girl, seduces him for the pleasure of seeing the pitiful boy leave his God. She sleeps with him and leaves him. Their time together is described: “Three Sundays that stank like rotten figs passed. As she watched Otsu’s head sway above her, Mitsuko thought of other things” (49). Otsu also has a trade-mark born out of the desire to please people – it is his “sorry”.
However, Otsu and Keiko has another trait in common: being rejected by people, they have sought a connection with non-humans; and this connection is precious. Keiko is talking to a ginkgo tree: “Mr Ginkgo, I’ll be dying soon. I envy you. You’ve been alive for over two hundred years now.” (20) The ginkgo teaches her about rebirth and her last words are, “I… I know for sure… I’ll be reborn somewhere in this world. Look for me… find me… promise… promise!” (17). She is certain. Otsu has a connection with God. When Mitsuko meets him in Lyon, he speaks about God: “For the first time Otsu spoke decisively, and he lifted his eyes to look her directly in the face” (64). Although Otsu still keeps saying the pitiful and awkward “sorry”, he is certain about something he believes in.
Both Keiko and Otsu have the certainty that Isobe and Mitsuko lack. Although uneasy in relationships with people, they both have a firm spirituality. Whether it makes up for their problematic interactions with people is unknown.
2. Is Mitsuko annoyed by Otsu’s God because she feels lost without anything to cling to?
467 words
Despite the apparent sadness that is evident through this entire novel, I can’t help but sympathize with the characters involved. I believe the main theme of this reading is simply searching. Each character and supporting character is searching. The character that truly touched me is Mr. Tsukada. Tsukada was a friend and fellow comrade of Kiguchi during the war in Burma. Kiguchi describes the desolate returning trip of defeat as “Highway of Death” (Endo 86). He continues to describe the path stating, “The corpses of Japanese soldiers lay piled in heaps on both sides of the road. Maggots swarmed around the noses and lips of the dead, and even of the soldiers who were faintly breath, and from the righty they heard some men cry ‘Kill me!’ The same voice echoed from the left”(87). The atrocities during the war were almost unbearable. Daily, soldiers died from malaria, dysentery, starvation, and other various diseases. This left Kiguchi and Tsukada mentally and emotionally wounded for the rest of their lives. Tsukada then chose liquor to stuff down his emotions from the brutality of war. Tsukada was in search of a way to cope with his actions. Even when confronted by his best friend, Tsukada replies, “Leave me alone . . . . I don’t care if I die!” (94). How else was a proud Japanese man supposed to tell his best friend what he had done? He sat daily searching himself for ways to explain what he had done out of necessity. Ironically, the answer was found thanks to his friend. When Kiguchi is about to leave, hurt by Tsukada’s words, Tsukada decides to tell Kiguchi what he had done. He says, “The meat I ate . . . it was PFC Minamikawa” (97). In order to save himself and his comrade, Tsukada had eaten the dead body of a fallen fellow soldier. This is why he was drinking. He was searching for a way to express his hidden secret. It was only then that Tsukada was able to peacefully accept death. Did Tsukada’s need to tell his secret help keep him alive even though it tormented him daily? What is Kiguchi searching for in India?
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 364
(this was the daily that I posted on BlackBoard and you told me to move to here)