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Postwar Japanese literature and historical transition durin the years 1945 - 1960
Weber, Michael ; Švarcová, Zdeňka (advisor) ; Nymburská, Dita (referee) ; Tirala, Martin (referee)
The thesis presents an assumption that literature is inspired by reality (besides other factors), and that specific literary worlds may, to a certain extent, reflect the actual state of society. Historical events around the end of WWII and the consequent rapid social changes in Japan during late 1940s and 1950s had an indisputable impact on literary production at the time. The aim of this thesis is to affirm this assumption through an analysis of selected short stories and novels from the time concerned. The analysis focuses on remarks and on references about the period of time when the prose was written, and also on behavioral and attitude changes of its characters - prototypes of the Japanese society. The direct impact of historical and social transition on literary work may also be traced in the works' themes, motifs and narrative. We can thus, in many cases, follow the development of the Japanese postwar society from 1945 until the late 1950s, when the country started to prosper economically. The selection of the analysed pieces of literature includes two novels which did not only describe the time of their origination, but also had reverse effect on society. The impact hypothesis is thus confirmed and, what is more, we can see a mutual influence exercised by both, the society and art: The...
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Short stories of Uchida Hyakken
Vrbovský, Matej ; Tirala, Martin (advisor) ; Weber, Michael (referee)
In this paper I am introducing the 20th century Japanese writer, Uchida Hyakken, and his literary work. I am describing his works chronologically, while taking the authors life into account as well. I am mainly covering his short stories, therefore this paper deals with the characterization of his short stories collections and the specification of peculiar marks that are present in them. Subsequently, I choose two short stories and carry out both a language and narrative analysis, with the aim of finding out how is Hyakken building the dreamlike atmosphere.
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The Image of Ageing in Postwar and Contemporary Japanese Literature
Reichlová, Anna-Marie ; Tirala, Martin (advisor) ; Weber, Michael (referee)
Japan is recently facing the issue of rapidly ageing population along with the negative impact of this phenomenon. It is one of contemporary social concerns, which is being reflected in culture and arts as well, literature included. The paper describes the subject of imaging ageing and the process of ageing itself using the method of literary analysis in five selected representative works by three significant authors of Japanese literature dating from the post-war era up to nowadays. By detailed analysis of literary characters relevant to the subject, the paper focuses on particular aspects of the protagonists' psychological profile and their internal conflicts concerning the sense of life and death. For this purpose, the paper is using illustrative quotations from the primary sources. Furthermore, the paper covers interaction with other characters and interpersonal relations involved in the development of the main characters in the course of the particular publication. In the end, the paper presents the results of analysis, finding that the analyzed works seem to show multiple similarities in the basic scheme of presenting the main elderly characters and also discusses the differences between the authors' literary styles. Simultaneously, it serves as a reference material for the overview subject...
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Short Stories of Kōno Taeko
Baďurová, Jana ; Tirala, Martin (advisor) ; Weber, Michael (referee)
(in English): The topic of this work is the characteristics of the short stories by Kono Taeko. At first I am presenting the methodology - psychoanalysis. Then, I'm describing her life for better understanding of the use of some typical features. Especially the war and the tuberculosis had influence on her work. Subsequently I present possible interpretation of her stories in term of Shintoism (effort to purify) and Buddhism (achievement of liberation). In interpersonal relations Kono Taeko deals mainly with man- woman relationships and her attitude can be considered feminist. In the most comprehensive chapter concerning masochism I am trying to prove with Freud's theory "The child is being beaten" that her work is masochistic. In the end I am generalizing my findings. This work contains Czech translations of examples of her work and contains 68 pages.
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Speaking of the "Unspeakable". Messages hidden in the Work and in the Life of Mishima Yukio
Nymburská, Dita ; Švarcová, Zdeňka (advisor) ; Petříček, Miroslav (referee) ; Tirala, Martin (referee)
1 Summary My dissertation focuses on Mishima Yukio and the way the author, who strongly occupied himself with reflections on the imperfection of human language during the last decade of his life, conveyed the things that he was not able to or did not want to express explicitly. The dissertation is based on the metaphor of four rivers flowing into the Sea of Fertility, one of the arid lunar maria, that the writer used for his 'inconsistent' life shortly before his death. The four rivers that merged in Mishima's final work, the grandiose tetralogy The Sea of Fertility, represented four areas of the author's life. Each of them allowed him to express his ideas and feelings in a slightly different way. The River of Writing represented his fiction, the River of Theater showed his plays and his acting, the River of Body emphasized the role of bodybuilding and other sports in his life and finally, the River of Action revealed how the effeminate writer had transformed himself into a 'man of action'. The first section of my dissertation deals with Mishima's view on verbal communication. Although Mishima was a renowned writer and playwright who for the most part led a hardworking life and poured most of his energy into his writing, his attitude towards words was rather ambivalent. On the one hand, Mishima loved...
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Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and His Considerations on Literature
Bedáňová, Veronika ; Tirala, Martin (advisor) ; Weber, Michael (referee)
The thesis is focused on a literary theoretical debate between two outstanding Japanese writers: Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Tanizaki Junichiro. As a reaction to this debate, Akutagawa wrote a literary critical essay Bungeitekina, amarini bungeitekina (Literary, All Too Literary) which contains Akutagawa's considerations on literature and which is analyzed in this thesis. I have also devoted my thesis to other literary theoretical essays written by Akutagawa. The goal of this thesis is to follow the influence of Akutagawa's literary considerations of his works and also to set his work into the wider context of Japanese literature. Hermeneutics is the methodology chosen for this work. To achieve the set-out goal, biographies on Akutagawa and other literary studies focused on Akutagawa were studied.
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Explicit Depictions in Contemporary Japanese Literature
Šedivá, Lucie ; Tirala, Martin (advisor) ; Weber, Michael (referee)
In thesis "Explicit depictions of contemporary Japanese literature" I deal with contemporary prose literature describing problems of nowadays Japanese society. In the first part I define taboo and chose suitable novels for the need of this work. I focus on different types of characters - freeters, foreigners, social outsiders and victims. Next I take Murakami Ry's literature as an example of explicit depictions and show different ways of processing and various topics chosen by the author. Then I compare and contrast his work with selected prose of younger writer Kanehara Hitomi, who represents the literature of female authors in contemporary Japan. In conclusion I discuss the aesthetic function of literature of explicit depictions and its position in the field of art. By comparing and contrasting the various novels I reach my own characteristic of contemporary Japanese literature of explicit depictions.
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