Despair in Asian literature: exploring Dazai Osamu’s No Longer Human in the light of existentialism, absurdism & critical disability theory

Abstract

Despair is common to the human experience regardless of any facet of one’s identity. In the course of studying literature in English, we often have little exposure to Asian literature despite Asian literature also exhibiting these themes such an existential crisis and despair. This paper attempts to make an effort in addressing the huge gap between Western and Asian literature by exploring the protagonist’s despair from the famous modern Japanese I-novel No Longer Human (人間失格). In an attempt to provide more dimensions to further the purpose of this paper, Yozo’s character and despair is also compared to Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov and Underground man, Camus’ Sisyphus and Meursault, and lastly Murakami’s Kafka Tamura and Toru Watanabe. Viewed under the lens of Sartre’s Existentialism, Camus’ Absurdism and Critical Disability Theory, the paper aims to analyze Yozo’s despair and find the ways the individual self interacted with modern Japanese society.