Quiet Fluctuation of Norms Naoya Shiga and the Sense of Ethics in Modern Japan: From the 1910s to the 1940s From the 1910s to the 1940s

Quiet Fluctuation of Norms Naoya Shiga and the Sense of Ethics in Modern Japan: From the 1910s to the 1940s From the 1910s to the 1940s
Naoya Shiga's literature embodied the perfected individual in modern Japanese literature, and at the same time, it reflected the process by which the ethics on which modern Japan was founded were quietly shaken. From the Taisho period to the early Showa period, Japan embraced individualism, but still retained a strong sense of the family system and feudal morality. The conflict with his father and self-judgment based on conscience that are repeatedly depicted in Shiga's works were radical at the time as an attitude that prioritized the internal ethics of the individual over the state and community. As symbolized by reconciliation, he separated righteousness from the state and tradition through an attitude of trying to be true to one's own conscience rather than through revolutionary rupture. In the 1930s, even as militarism intensified, Shiga did not run to shouts and accusations, but kept his inner integrity through a concise and transparent style. His literature shows the p
ossibilities and limits of how personal ethics could be established within prewar Japan and quietly records the last point where modernity was still believed in.