著者

ギュヴェン デヴリム C

出版者

東京大学大学院総合文化研究科言語情報科学専攻

雑誌

言語情報科学 (ISSN:13478931)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, pp.187-202, 2011-03-01

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Oe Kenzaburo's "Applause" ("Kassai", 1958) recounts the story of Natsuo, a university student who is the "male mistress" of Lucien, a foreign diplomat posted in Japan. Natsuo's encounter and "successful" sexual intercourse with Yasuko, who is hired as a maid-prostitute by Lucien gives him hopes about an authentic "commitment" with her. Yet his plan collapses when he learns that she is in fact a prostitute specializing exclusively in homosexual couples, and all was a game planned by Lucien in order for Natsuo to become economically and sexually further dependent upon him. Oe used "sexuality" as a metaphor for articulating politics and power relations; the current political disengagement of Natsuo and the stagnation of the student movement during the suffocating social atmosphere of the late 1950s are translated into a creative discourse of sexuality by adopting images of impotence, sexual dependence and prostitution. Through juxtaposing almost all socio-political and sexual senses of the word "engagement" and a deliberate mistranslation of the French word "engager", Oe attempts to expose the effects of power mechanism of the Eurocentric culture, i.e., "cultural imperialism" on the periphery countries.