After The Apocalypse

After the Apocalypse: Hara Tamiki's Writings on the Bombing of Hiroshtma
Author(s): Brett de Bary

Source: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Nov., 1980),
pp. 150-169
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Japanese
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488881 .
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150
Vol.
15,
No.
JOURNAL OF THE
AFTER THE APOCALYPSE:

HARATAMIKI'S WRITINGS ON THE BOMBING
OF HIROSHIMA
Brett
de Bary
Hara Tamiki, whose slender

output of poetry and
had largely
in the years
short stories
gone unnoticed
the
Pacific
before
attracted
serious
War, first
in the Japanese literary
attention
world with the
of Summer Flowers
(Natsu no hana),
a
publication
the
of
of
account
atomic
bombing of Hiroshima,
prose
which Hara was a survivor.
Summer Flowers,
actufollowally composed in the midst of the devastation
in
scheduled
was
for
the
autumn, 1945,
ing
bombing
Kindai
of
in
the
issue
Bungaku.
founding
publication
to Haniya Yutaka, a member of the magaAccording
editorial
zine's
board at the time, preliminary
revealed
that the work would not pass
inquiries
so publication
was
by G.H.Q. censors,
inspection
When
it
for
.
a
and
a
half
finally
year
delayed
in Mita Bungaku in November, 1946, Hara
appeared
Prize.
Minakami Takitaro
became winner of the first
in
four years before his suicide
In the intervening
to publish
short prose pieces
1951, Hara continued
The
in Gunzo, Kindai Bungaku, and other magazines.
number
these
works
dramatiof
of
a
departs
style
While Summer
from that of Summer Flowers.
cally
in the I-novel
follows
a
written
style,
Flowers,
as a story of
structure
narrative
conventional
within
delineated
chronoa clearly
events
unfolding
these later
framework and spatial
setting,
logical
of time and
works play with distorted
conceptions
to sound,
the voice of the narrator
causing
space,
like a disembodied
voice.
Similarly,
frequently,
to render
serves
while the imagery in Summer Flowers

ASSOCIATION
OF TEACHERS OF JAPANESE
151
and visuevents at Hiroshima more vivid

emotionally
in
later
on an
works
takes
Hara's
the
ally,
imagery
a
vision
of
function
and
abstract
symbolic
opens up
universe.
a mystical,
post-Apocalypse
between
the relationship
This essay will explore
Summer Flowers and two of Hara's later works, "Requiem"
in 1949, and "The Land of My
written
(Chinkonka),
written
Desire"
Heart's
shortly
(Shingan no kuni),
These works reveal an interestbefore Hara's death.
which may be seen as coing artistic
development
to deal
with
Hara's
struggle
evolving
intensifying
of the Hiroshima
after-effects
with the psychological
The bomb experience,
in fact,
plays such
experience.
role in the course followed
a central
by Hara's life
last years that we may understand
and art during these
radiation
him as the victim of a kind of "spiritual
disease."
in the path of an
Hara committed suicide
by lying
Alin Tokyo.
Station
oncoming train near Kichij6ji
to depression
over
though his death is often attributed
the outbreak of the Korean War, Hara's later writings
itself
reveal a mind which feels
increasingly
clearly
is
of insanity
This threat
threatened
by insanity.
In
isolation.
severe
of a sense of
the result
partly
of
the
uses
image
"Requiem," Hara frequently
(one who has been shaken off),
ningen"
"furiotosareta
"tsukihanasareta
(one who has been pushed
ningen"
no ningen"
sekai
(one who has
away), or "hagitorareta
He is a man who
had the world torn away from him).
has been "thrown off the train"
(the moving world of
small
whose
and
boarding house room
single
humanity)
me."
In "The Land of My Heart's
even "rejects
that he has "reached the depths
Hara writes
Desire,"
There is no longer a scrap of
of human loneliness.
No doubt this
to in this world."2
straw to cling
if not
was
of
isolation
sense
enhanced,
frightening
Hiroshima
the
of
his
obsessive
memory
created,
by
in the
of dreaming,
The experience
experience.
flash
and deafof
a
that one falls
instant
asleep,
of
in
Hara's
is
recorded
many
ening explosion,
he
In "The Land of My Heart's
works.
Desire,"

152
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JOURNAL OF THE
describes
his entire
body condrowsing off,
feeling
vulsed
a
and
to
the
dream
by
explosion,
waking
is nothing
that "there
disconcerting
discovery
He asks:
unusual."
...But
why, then, had I been blown up against
moment ago?
my will just a single
Where, where
did it come from?...
During the tragedy at
I showed no symptoms of psychological
Hiroshima
But isn't
disorder.
the shock of that instant
and
always stalking
myself and other victims
to drive us insane?3
threatening
Here Hara links the threat of insanity
with memory,
The writer
as well as with loneliness.
is haunted
it
by a frightening
memory which he cannot escape;
it can only
is the memory which isolates
him, because
be shared with other survivors,
or with the dead.
Whatever Hara's depression
over the outbreak of
we cannot doubt that there
the Korean War, therefore,
was a more profound link between his suicide
and the
the
atomic
bomb.
His
of
mind, repeatedly
experience
forced by memory to try to comprehend what he described
seems graduthat defies
as "an instant
comprehension,"
with
the livCommunication
to
have
broken
down.
ally
his
difficult.
had
become
extremely
Describing
ing
in
life with relatives
of Hiroshima
on the outskirts
noted
an
"after-effect"
or
Hara
1954,
sympSeptember,
he would
the bombing:
after
tom he developed
shortly
inside
see a fluttering,
light
glaring
repeatedly
he
had
come
Yet
because
his left
through the
eye.
the forehead,
than
scratch
on
with
a
no
more
bombing
he could be
he expressed
the
that
at
time,
disbelief,
"...My
any damage, even psychological.
suffering
I could almost say I was untouched.
wound was so light
But the
Then was the shock affecting
my nerves?
Could I even call
event lasted
only a few seconds.
Yet the passage of time brought an
it a shock?"4
of these symptoms into a full-blown
aggravation
of the spirit.
disease
Perhaps with a fanatical
Hara seems to have demonstrated
purity of conscience,

ASSOCIATION
OF TEACIIERS OF JAPANESE
in his death just how difficult

it
one who experienced
Hiroshima--even
untouched"
by the bomb--to survive.
could be for
one "almost
153
any-
I would like to suggest

this background,
Against
that the relationship
of Summer Flowers to the stylistic
which came later
is not so much
innovations
The new feaone of discontinuity
as of continuity.
the
tures of Hara's style
of a
culmination
represent
in
which
of
of
maturation
artistic
process
techniques
in
the
chief
concern
decade
of
Hara's
poetry writing,
his thirties,
before the war, have been integrated
Yet the most striking
into prose composition.
styHara is able to achieve
listic
effects
through this
can be seen as a continuation
fusing of techniques
thematic
concerns
which we
of the effort
to express
In the folfind in nascent
form in Summer Flowers.
what seem to
(1) suggest
lowing pages I will:
of thematic
be the most important aspects
continuity
between Summer Flowers and the later works, and (2)
in Hara's style
as it
point out some of the changes
his
from the Summer Flowers
evolved
period until
as they are seen in the 1949
death,
particularly
work, "Requiem."
Summer FZowers is a record of Hara's personal

on the day of the atomic bombing and the
experiences
in close
proxit, written
following
days immediately
the
final
events
the
to
during
described,
imity
restrained
The concrete
months of 1945.*
imagery,
the
work
are
of
deliberate
and
apparent
tone,
pace
in its opening
from the start,
paragraphs:
is limited
to the
*In this paper, my analysis
Flowers
it
Summer
was
first
as
manuscript
original
in
added
two
sections
Hara
later
1946.
published
the months before and after
the bombing.
describing

154
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JOURNAL OF THE
I took a walk downtown, bought some flowers,

decided
the grave of my wife.
In my
to visit
and
I
taken
of incense
had
pocket I had some sticks
On August 15, it would be
from the family altar.
but I
the first
of my wife's
anniversary
death,
survive
until
if
native
would
wondered
my
city
The electricity
all over the city had been
then.
not
cut off that day for rationing,
yet I noticed
flowers
soul wandering around carrying
another
like myself.
I don't know what
in the streets
the name of the flowers
but
they were yelwas,
wild
with small petals
low flowers
and a delicate
look...
just the kind of flower one associates
with summer.
The hot sun was beating
down on the gravethe
stone.
I ladled water over it and divided
flowers
into two bunches,
which I placed on the
This gave the grave a fresh,
right and the left.
cool look and I stood and stared at the stone and
It was not only my
the flowers
for a while.
wife's
bones which were buried here, but also
I lit the incense,
and my mother's.
my father's
and drank some water
uttered
a silent
prayer,
Then I
from a well on one side of the grave.
Park.
returned
home by way of Nigitsu
My pocket
all that day and the next.
smelled of incense
to the
It was on the third day after
my visit
grave that the atomic bomb fell.5
As we see above, the focus is on the single
day
as a unit of time; the story moves from three days
before the bombing to the day of the bombing itself,
then the day after
the day after,
that--covering
about six days in all.
Although the "story within
is frequently
a story" technique
employed when the
who
other victims
relatives
and
encounters
narrator
the
own
their
recount
during
experiences
briefly
a
the text emphasizes
seconds that the bomb fell,
clearly
chronological
development,
straightforward
in which the
the day-by-day
sequence
delineating
The
wanders through the devastated
narrator
city.
reader does not find his or her habitual
perceptions

ASSOCIATION
155
of time and space being challenged,

as will
happen in
The spatial
which occur in the
later works.
concepts
The boundaries
work are also conventional
ones.
of
the city
the story are those of the city of Hiroshima,
We see in Hiroshima only what
where Hara grew up.
is able to see.
Hara himself
few hints of
While Summer Flowers seems to offer
the stylistic
Hara would introduce
innovations
into
there
his prose in the following
are
years,
many
in the book to which he would return obsessively,
scenes
and which may provide
us with a thematic
bridge to his
are
later writings.
Two brief
passages
particularly
In one, Hara describes,
quite simply,
significant.
him "almost unthe dropping of the bomb which left
the
he
in
the
moment when he
other,
touched";
depicts
he is a "survivor."
realizes
The moment of
the
bombing
is described
as follows:
I don't quite rememwent into the bathroom.

...I
I
it was, but suddenly
later
ber how many seconds
fell
down on
was struck on the head and darkness
descendtop of me. There was a sound of something
all was
ing like a great storm, but otherwise
tell
what was happening.
pitch dark and I couldn't
I groped to open the door and went out on the
I could clearly
hear
verandah.
Up to that point,
in the midst of a great roarmy voice screaming
I couldn't
because
ing sound, but I was troubled
When I got out to the verandah
see anything.
and could see the ruin of the house floating
up
in the dim light
my mind became clear.6
and
disorientation
sense of perceptual
The narrator's
is perceived
where the self
of dissociation
experience
voice and the
in two (the screaming
as somehow split
of the
in this description
are key elements
listener)
the
The image of
moment of bombing.
dissociated,
in Hara's
becomes increasingly
self
prevalent
split
later work.

156
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No.
JOURNAL OF THE
The second scene occurs a few pages later.

which
has fled from his neighborhood,
narrator
to
and
has
reach
a
riverside
managed
burning,
to which many people are running for safety.
In this
is a mass of flame.
side of the river
time since the bomb has fallen,
for the first
his life
has
rator pauses to rest and realizes
saved.
The
is
park,
The other
park,
the narbeen
the river
...I
sat down on the narrow path beside
and realized
that from now on I would be all right.
The thing which had threatened
to happen for so
long, which I knew was in store for us, had hapI felt
I realized
that I had surlight;
pened.
There was one chance in two that I would
vived.
the fact
and suddenly
I thought,
have perished,
I
struck me.
that I was alive,
and its meaning,
murmured to myself that I must leave a record of
this.
But at the time I hardly knew the truth
about the bombing.7
Ge Kenzabur6 has commented on the uncanny "prewhich seems to have afflicted
of Apocalypse"
monition
We see an expression
of that
Hara since childhood.8
the passage conIn addition,
in the quote above.
which was to sustain
the elements
of the vision
tains
effort
Hara's literary
through the next six years of
it should be noted
In the first
his life.
place,
of survival
takes place
that the moment of realization
is gazing out over a river,
an
while the narrator
of
world, one suggestive
image from the natural
to achieve
Nature's
continuity
ability
mysterious
The
sense of
narrator's
renewal.
through flow and
tonresonates
saba
shita
"1 ightness"
kimochi)
(saba
next
the
his
In
with
however,
breath,
image.
ally
emoas two overwhelming
he states
what he perceives
that the matter of his survival
truths:
tional
that furtheris somehow accidental;
(a 50-50 chance)
at the
he suspects,
was attained
more his survival,
else.
someone
death
of
of
the
expense
We have
which
guilt"
of the
here an expression
Robert Lifton has analyzed
"survivor
extensively

ASSOCIATION
157
Death in Life (Random House,

in his book on Hiroshima,
that
one
has survived
means acceptaware
1967).
Being
two
ideas in the
burden
of
a
By suggesting
guilt.
ing
same phrase ("there was one chance in two that I would
have perished"...i.e.,
probably one out of every two
the narrator
in
Hiroshima
clearly
perished),
people
to his sense of
links the "meaning" of his survival
At the same time, the statement
the fate of others.
On
consciousness.
rather
a
contradictory
expresses
the one hand, the notion of survival
by sheer chance
there is no meaning to the
in fact,
that,
suggests
rather than another's.
survival
fact of one individual's
that the
On the other hand, the statement
proposes
lie
in
the
life
a relationsurvivor's
of
may
"meaning"
one of
to
the
"other"
or
of
obligation
gratitude
ship
which follows,
In the sentence
the two who perished.
the contradiction
to resolve
the narrator
by
attempts
Hiroshima.
about
to
a
commitment
writing
expressing
as an individual
life
Thus his potentially
meaningless
to the
will
find meaning in an act of service
survivor
of the word
Hara's choice,
dead.
particularly,
seems to
kakinokosu
(to write and to leave behind)
ceremonial
with the ancient
imbue the art of writing
a bridge between the dead, the
function
of providing
the narraIn this sense,
and the living.
spirits,
His writing
have come full circle.
reflections
tor's
continuity
through change for the human
represents
continuity
just as the river represents
community,
world.
Finally,
although
through change in the natural
in the passage
the idea is by no means made explicit
of human
that the vision
above, we might suggest
"immortality"
promised here is no more, and no less,
we observe
in the natural
than the type of continuity
which
Thus I would argue that the "mysticism"
world.
Oe Kenzabur6 sees as gradually
coming to the fore in
but a "thisis not an other-worldly
Hara's writings
of the
an earth-bound
mysticism
mysticism,
worldly"
Mori J6ji has seen as characteristic
type that critic
tradition.9
and cultural
of the Japanese
religious
of immortality.
The earth is the source and guarantor
Thus, in the poem at the opening of Summer FZowers
the
I beg of you, run, make haste/in
("Loved ones,
the
on/Like
the
of
mountains/Live
fragrant
heights

158
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No.
like the young fawn"),

deer,
on in the mountains,
echoing
that dead souls do not leave
the mountains.
JOURNAL OF THE
Hara asks the dead to live
the ancient
Shinto belief
this world, but dwell in
Hara's post-1945
works
then--including
writings,
in 1944, which seem to be unabout his wife's
death,
to the bombing--may all be seen as thematically
related
in the sense that they deal with the relaconnected
between the living
We must not
and the dead.
tionship
the statement
of qualification
in
however,
overlook,
Summer Flowers which was added to the narrator's
expres"I murmured
to write about Hiroshima:
sion of resolve
But at
to myself that I must leave a record of this.
that time I hardly knew the truth about the bombing."10
here added almost as an afterthought,
was to
This line,
it
For
was Hara's fate,
prophetic.
prove ominously
to the task of communicating
having committed his life
the memory of Hiroshima,
to find at every step of the
that
there
about the events which
was
something
way
The most radical
his art.
his
efforts
and
over-powered
in fact,
in Hara's prose style,
occur in
innovations
moments of breakdown when art,
works describing
seemed inadequate
and even human intelligence
language,
a coherent
to the task of finding
meaning in the Hiroshima experience.
in
Hara's "Requiem" (Chinkonka) was published
in August,
four
Gunzo magazine
1949, exactly
years
We have only
the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
after
to compare the opening paragraph with that of Summer
between the
differences
Flowers to notice
striking
two works.
the beautiful
words and
Almost incessantly,
ideas are washed away.
They come gushing out
from gaps between clouds deep in the sky and come
How many years has it been
towards me.
flying
that
I've been unable to sleep?
My eyes are
This trembling
wide open and my lips are dry.
even to breathe,
an effort
where it's
space,

ASSOCIATION
159
this
is part of the universe,
isn't
surely
it?
Somewhere within me I can vaguely
sense
that if I exist
in the universe,
this space
And that means that my not being
must, too.
able to sleep for all these years--that,
too,
in the unimust be a small event that exists
I was wondering what a human being was.
verse.
I was thinking
about it so much that I found I
couldn't
My eyes are wide
sleep any more.
open...my
trembling
lips are dry...this
space...ll
From the start,
there is no effort
to recreate
in
this work a coherent
While
"realistic"
external
world.
at the outset
of Summer FZowers we are given very precise
about time and place,
information
"Requiem" fails
within
time or space frameto orient
us
any familiar
it proposes
a patently
work.
Rather,
preposterous
notion of time, for we are asked to measure the
which "comin terms of years,
speaker's
sleeplessness
The speaker
idenus is impossible.
mon sense" tells
his space,
as
tifies
moreover,
literally
"space"
he could use,
the most abstract
definition
(knkan),
extreme doubt about this space--he
and expresses
is
Wherever
not sure if it is even part of the universe.
it is, since words appear out of gaps in the clouds
it is clear that we are to
and fly around in the air,
the
universe
here, not so much
comprehend
presented
the
external
reference
to
world, but by decoding
by
in the area
the author's
Finally,
system.
symbolic
of
of tone, we find that the self-contained
intensity
which
is replaced
a
Summer Flowers
by
urgency
desperate
of the
the beautiful
felt
makes itself
lyricism
despite
The voice which speaks to us seems always on the
work.
control.
verge of losing
to continue
In fact,
reading "Requiem" is to exwe have one
At first
confusion.
considerable
perience
a soliloquy
to himself,
speaker who seems to be talking
He says that he is ponderhe hopes we will overhear.
ing about "what a human being is" and that the only
he knew the answer to this was when his
time he felt
life
was in jeopardy
during the bombing of Hiroshima.
to live
The thought that sustained
him, as he struggled

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the bombing, was that he should

in the days just after
but because of the cries of
life
"not for myself,
live
those who have died."l2
We may imagine this speaker
as being in a kind of dream world, albeit
an insomniin
this
ac's dream world.
Suddenly,
"trembling
space"
he finds himself
a white marble temple.
approaching
It is a memorial to victims
of the atomic bomb. He
and is given special
enters
and earphones,
glasses
then led to a display
case where he may observe
a
As he watches
it he begins
"replay" of the bombing.
"I'm
to scream and to try to tear the glasses
off.
here!
I'm here!
That's not me over there."13
A guide removes the glasses
and leads the narrator to a sofa.
He lies down, and begins to try to
his memory, pushing himself
concentrate
through five
the first
remembered layers of time to retrieve
moment
in childhood
when he perceived
over there."
a "self
Here the theme of the dissociated
Hara's central
self,
of the moment the bomb fell,
is expanded so
perception
of
that it now appears always to have been a feature
He remembers perceiving
the narrator's
consciousness.
"in the trembling
a hoshimself
green leaves" outside
a backwindow, in a mirror (which also reflected
pital
in the apartment which he shared with
ground of leaves)
in another mirror as a child,
his wife before she died,
"I saw myself
and finally,
a
as
very young child,
there."14
was also a forest
across
from myself...there
the
the narrator
leaves
After these reflections,
the
left
The
exhibit,
however,
by
impression
temple.
of going insane.
He finds
haunts him and he is afraid
and
becomes
in
of
crowd
a
himself
huge
people,
walking
in the crowd, because he cannot quite disconfused
between himself
and the crowd.
Again, he has
tinguish
Morenot over there.
he is "here,"
himself
to tell
are
if
the
crowds
he
sure
not
is
streaming
over,
words and ideas
or streaming
streaming
people "outside"
he
over these doubts,
As he agonizes
in his own mind.
some
of eight voices,
is interrupted
by a succession
All have
him.
who address
some nameless,
identified,
some refer to
the atomic bombing, although
experienced
it
describe
it simply as "that time," while others

ASSOCIATION
161
as "the end of the world."

The two most
figuratively
like the original
are plagued,
speakers
important
narrator
of two selves.
As
himself,
by a perception
the narrator
he listens
to their
voices,
interjects
of despair,
as urgent as those in the
his own cries
"What
am
I searching
What am
for?
opening
passage:
there
in
the
a
crack
or
earth
I trying
to avoid?
Is
in
the
in my dream?"
of
final
a rift
pages
Only
in the
take consolation
the work does the narrator
"I am still
able to cry out in
at least,
fact that,
And one cry is equal to countless
cries."16
mourning...
well
He hears an "evening
out
traffic
of
a
requiem"
He becomes transparent,
so that people
intersection.
the
on
street
and whirling
go right through him.
papers
and prays for them.
He calls
out to the dead spirits
The dream-like
confusion
of "Requiem," the
of self
seems
unstable
sense
("self"
utterly
speaker's
other
with
to be virtually
any
interchangeable
part of
of
the constant
the universe),
and distortion
shifting
all
diffimake
it
and
temporal
spatial
perspectives,
cult to perceive
any order in the work.
"Requiem"
of
dream fragbe
to
disconnected
a
patchwork
appears
of despair,
and cries
moving nowhere;
ments, memories,
it simply as the moving,
it is tempting
to interpret
of a man who cannot recover
but incoherent,
babbling
his
from the trauma of Hiroshima and is perhaps losing
mind.
the organizing
in detecting
Perhaps our difficulty
in "Requiem" stems from the fact that while
structure
as
it is a prose work which might be classified
it does not follow an easily
or zuihitsu,
shishasetsu
We find
form of prose organization.
recognizable
of the
the cause-effect
neither
exposition
logical
of rethe
form, nor
unfolding
essay or rhetorical
the
in time which often characterizes
lated events
in
Summer
structure
Flowers).
narrative
(the
employed
that there
is a careYet I would like to suggest
in
structure
"Requiem,"
integrating
wrought,
fully
and that the marble temple scene near the beginning
us with a "model," or at least
of the work provides

162
with
this
Vol.
15,
No.
several
clues,
structure.
JOURNAL OF THE
2
which
can help
us to understand
the narInside the "Atomic Bomb Memorial Hall,"

a scaled-down
model
rator finds a box which contains
He
"mask"
the
of
is
a
of
Hiroshima.
city
given
special
to press a switch which will
and instructed
replay the
It is at the point
scene of the dropping of the bomb.
when the city explodes
that he begins to see a double
he knows running
He finds himself
and others
self.
He screams and tries
ruins.
desamidst the crumbling
He
the
to
and
tear
off
glasses
earphones.
perately
"The
of time.
a distorted
also experiences
perception
the light
is unfolding
as
flash...now
slowly,
slowly,
now again,
as
if in a dream; now the speed intensifies;
into tiny particles
if that one second could be divided
descends
of time, the light
hesitantly."17
slowly,
The narrator
that makes time
"Cursed machine,
screams:
he
And
cries
conunfold at every possible
speed!"18
until
the guide
"I'm not there!"
"I'm here!
tinuously,
him of the mask and leads him to the sofa.
relieves
about the surus something
Hara is here telling
with both the "facts"
and the
confrontation
vivor's
It is only the limitation
of
"memory" of Hiroshima.
the survivor
from the
which insulates
human perception
If an "omniscient"
real horror of Hiroshima.
perspecit
were possible--if
which the box simulates,
tive,
those few seconds
were possible
to literally
perceive
mind
time particles
of destruction--the
as countless
the
This puzzle,
would be overwhelmed and deranged.
of the tragedy,
torments
dimensions
incomprehensible
to deal with it.
the mind the longer the mind tries
the
is no
narrator
So, four years after
Hiroshima,
The
true
Hiroshima.
of
tell
a "story"
longer able to
The
box
time.
in
be
told
ordinary
story can never
scene also links the memory of Hiroshima with the
and disindissociation
of psychological
experience
conscious
than
obsession
of
More
out
tegration.
the mind is prone to "switch" on memory and
choice,
the
Yet as the events are replayed
events.
replay
He loses his grip
rememberer is swept back into them.

ASSOCIATION
OF TEACHERS
OF JAPANESE
163
both because of the magnetic

on the present,
power of
his habitual
and because the events
threaten
the past,
of his perceptions.
in the coherence
faith
that the
It is out of this fundamental
insight
Hara
chosen
takes
has
structure
of "Requiem"
shape.
this work around an illusion
of conot to organize
both the conceptual
herence and therefore
rejects
logic
of the essay and the time-centered
logic of the narrais
The only coherence
tive.
imposed on the material
a
comof an abstract
the coherence
design
pattern,
This
and repetition
of motifs.
posed of alternation
for
to
Hara
have
mode of composition
may
appealed
it is a mode of compoIn a sense,
reasons.
several
that makes no bones about being arbitrary;
sition
created
is imposed through an artificially
coherence
in
external
for
not
and
"meaning"
by seeking
pattern
of the pattern
are reThe basic elements
reality.
and
unanswered
images (or
repeated
questions,
peated,
and
linked
association)
Through
phrases.
through
images
the intelthe work can suggest
unanswered questions,
with finding
lect's
meaning in the events
preoccupation
and at the same time continand memory of Hiroshima,
is an affirmative
But there
uously thwart this effort.
witness
For while we vividly
side to this negativism.
as it seeks meaning, we see
the intellect's
frustration
the human being defy reason and assert
meaning through
is the
act of repetition.
the ritualistic
Repetition
of the
of
ancient
song,
prayer--indeed,
poetry,
pattern
requiem for the dead.
is done, let us take a clohow this
To understand
ser look at the opening pages of "Requiem."
Although
for
to be disorienting
is likely
the first
paragraph
a meanit carefully,
it is, if we consider
the reader,
The narrator
poses what we might see
inquiry.
ingful
or epistomological,
what is
as metaphysical,
questions:
The question
what is the self?
what is space?
time?
is the quesfor his sleeplessness
which is responsible
we
human
is
a
what
might also
being? (which
tion,
human
the
of
value
a
life?")
single
phrase "what is
of
the artist-survivor
These are questions
confronting

164
Vol.
15,
No.
JOURNAL OF THE
Hiroshima who is committed to doing something with the

In order to communicate the memmemory of Hiroshima.
ory, he must be able to speak and to find the right
establish
who and where he is);
in
listeners
(i.e.,
order to interpret
its meaning he must ask himself
"what a human being is."
are raised at
Although these questions
ning of "Requiem," they are never answered.
the work moves rapidly
into a poetic
mode of
tion which relies
on linking
and alternation
of phrases.
associated
images and repetition
the question
of what is a
second paragraph,
being is picked up:
the beginInstead,
organizaof
In the
human
When I didn't
have a grain of rice in my
I
could
see myself walking unsteadily
stomach,
road
on
a
a
with a transparent
along
leafy hill,
I thought that was a human being.
"Live
stomach.
of those who
not for yourself...live
for the cries
I told myself over and over again...
have died,"
me. The legs of
I walked on.
My legs sustained
a human being."'9
up on the phrase "the legs of a human being"
Picking
no
the next five paragraphs
ashi),
(ningen
open with
the following
phrases:
"Ningen no ashi"
"Ningen no me"
("human legs"),
("human eyes"),
paragraph
paragraph
"Ningen no shitai"
("human corpses"),
paragraph
"Ningen
no shitai"
("human corpses"),
paragraph
"Ningen
no kannen"
("human ideals"),
paragraph
The opening sentence

of paragraph 8 is a return to the
of the work, which is repeated
very opening sentence
words
"Almost ceaselessly,
almost exactly.
mysterious
We may take this as a
and ideas are washed away."
unit of the text has been
that a meaningful
signal
which introduces
(the opening sentence,
completed

ASSOCIATION
165
it is in the eighth
basic themes);
indeed,
paragraph
of the visit
to the Atomic
that the dream-like
episode
Patterns
of repetition
Bomb Memorial Hall begins.
and
be
to
continue
basic
the
to
however,
substitution,
of the text throughout.
and development
organization
on the patterned
structure
of
These observations
in
its
theme,
and,
clarify
"Requiem" may significantly
to Hara's first
its fundamental
turn,
relationship
to write about the atomic bomb in Summer Flowers.
attempt
It is as if he is saying,
through this work, "I want to
to
the meaning of the Hiroshima experience
communicate
those who live on but my mind is thwarted by the task;
I can simply utter a prayer."
Thus, while the narrator
to mourn
over his ability
constantly
expresses
despair
the holocaust,
his very questhe dead and interpret
take the form of a prayer by
tions and cries
of despair
The narrator's
virtue
of their
patterned
repetition.
to the
of this,
which extends
final
acknowledgement
realization
cries")
("one cry is equal to countless
to him are really
voices
that the disembodied
speaking
a sense of resolution,
speaking
through him, provides
at the end of the work.
however fragile,
of the requiem
It is in keeping with the spirit
which figures
that the image of the dissociated
self,
the
in the work, not only expresses
so prominently
at
the
of
events
in
face
intellect
breakdown of the
be
used
to
a
but also seems to
express
Hiroshima,
of all souls.
or hope, for the immortality
longing,
for
this
is one feasible
At any rate,
explanation
of the otherwise
the inclusion
highly
problematic,
delves
in which the narrator
through
obscure,
passage
of the
different
layers of memory to seek the origin
As we have seen,
over there."
of a "self
perception
use of the imagery of
the passage makes conspicuous
in Shinto myth
and mirrors,
long central
green leaves
the Shinto
Is Hara here, too, echoing
and ritual.
with yorishiro,
world filled
of a natural
vision
would
Such a vision
lodging
places of the spirits?
the
of
in
the
belief
a
continuity
consoling
justify
Hara's image of the "self
human community.
Moreover,
in leaves or trees)
over there"
may
(so often depicted

166
Vol.
15,
No.
JOURNAL OF THE
in a larger,
the individual
soul's
participation
symbolize
that
The
notion
the
world.
of
natural
"soul"
abiding
the individual
soul might be literally
interchangeable
be it material
or spiritual,
with any other object,
statement
could underly the frequent
by the narrator,
in
and other dissociated
"Requiem," that they
speakers
between themselves
and other human
cannot distinguish
it is signifiinanimate
or
Finally,
objects.
beings
on which "Requiem"
cant that the note of resolution
of a
from the narrator's
results
concludes
expression
to harmony with the
sense that he has been restored
The final
lines
world.
order of the natural
cyclical
of the work are hopeful.
will
rise again and flowers
Tomorrow the sun will
in bloom.
overflow
sing with
Tomorrow, birds will
over endvoices.
clear
Oh, Earth, Earth--brim
I'll
with feeling.
travel
beautifully,
lessly,
tomorrow.20
along your pathways,
in closing
that there
it must be mentioned
Still,
Neither
in "Requiem."
note of weakness
is a disturbing
can provide us with
nor the work itself
the narrator
of this
in the ultimate
for belief
a basis
efficacy
The "requiem" springs
up, on its
prayer for the dead.
while the
own power, from a traffic
intersection,
He
all too"transparent."
remains tentative,
narrator
voices
for
other
medium
as a
is almost more successful
We sense palpably
with his own voice.
than at speaking
in
work.
Hara's
breakdown
the danger of a final
is a much shorter
Desire"
"The Land of My Heart's
in style
and content.
work than "Requiem," but similar
themes and images:
the familiar
It contains
sleeplessa distorted
ever intensifying
isolation,
percepness,
tion of time in which a second can be an infinity.
to earth of a
slow fall
(Hara watches the infinitely
of Hara's
The
is
work
leaf.)
fully
prophetic
single
the train that roars
for he mentions
suicide,
stations
and
and Nishiogikubo
between Kichijoji

ASSOCIATION
167
soon join "the shadows of

says that his "shadow" will
in life...no
those who have failed
matter how they
writhed
and struggled,
and who wander perpetually
along
these rails."21
A new image in the work, perhaps its most telling
is the image of two earths,
rather
sign of despair,
than one, which the narrator
perceives
during his
One earth has a "mass of red flames"
nights.
sleepless
at its core, which simmers with "undiscovered
substances
But the other earth is a
and unimagined mysteries."
Oe Kenzaburb has analyzed
frozen ball."22
"pitiful,
this as a vision
the death
of the ultimate
Apocalypse,
The image offers
no hope for
of the entire
earth.23
the realization
of what Hara says is his long-held
where quiet springs
will
dream of a "peaceful
earth,
in each person's
echo each other
and where
heart,
will not be crushed by anything."24
Hara's
human life
in his own life
to failure
is superimposed
confession
of the earth.
of the annihilation
on a premonition
There is a
Yet Hara was a mystic to the end.
brief
letter
to Hara's brother-in-law,
Sasaki Kiichi,
to the end of "The Land of My Heart's
attached
The letter
him farewell.
is only
Desire,"
bidding
but
it
narrates
lines
or
so
fifteen
an
long,
we rewhich we can make no sense of unless
anecdote
the
there"
which
is
notion
of
"self
over
the
fer to
about
feature
of Hara's writing
such a conspicuous
Hiroshima.
I remember a scene from last year, when End6
He looked down at us
for France.
ShOsaku left
Suzuki Shigeo
from the stern of the Marseilles.
on the pier,
and I were standing
joking with each
other as we looked up at the busy stern of the
Then somehow I felt
as if End6
ship.
departing
was down there with us, and that he, too, was
looking
up at the stern of the boat.
Goodby, and take care of yourself.25
Somehow Hara must have believed
be with us.
that
he would

still
168
Vol.
15,
No.
JOURNAL OF THE
NOTES
Haniya Yutaka, interview with the author, Tokyo,
July 15, 1970. The same information is found in
Kokai, Eiji, Hara Tamiki: Shijin no shi (Tokyo:
Kokubunsha, 1978), p. 143.
2
Hara, Tamiki.
"Shingan no kuni,"
Natsu no hana, Shingen no kuni (Tokyo:
1973), p. 245.
in Hara, Tamiki,
Shinch6 Bunko,
31bid.
Hara, Tamiki, Natsu no hana,
5bid.,
p. 123.
6bid.,
p. 124.
Ibid.,
to shite
Mori, Jj i, Nihon no yurei

Shobunsha, 1974), p. 11.
0Hara, Natsu no hana,
no kuni, p. 128.
Ibid.,
p.
no sengo
no kaih5
(Tokyo:
p. 183.
185.
p. 188.
Ibid.,
p. 191.
p. 209.
Ibid.,
p. 220.
Ibid.,
p. 188.
(Tokyo:
in Natsu no hana, Shingan
"Chinkonka," in Ibid.,
13Ibid.,
1Ibid.,
p. 148.
p. 128.
8e Kenzaburo, DSjidai
Kodansha, 1973), p. 261.
1Hara,
in Ibid.,

ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF JAPANESE
Ibid.,
p. 183.
19 Ibid.
2O
Ibid.,
p. 224.
2Hara, "Shingan no kuni,"

22Ibid.,
p. 247.
230e, Dojidai
to shite
no sengo,
2Hara, "Shingan no kuni,"

25Ibid.,
p. 245.
Ibid.,
p. 251.
p. 247.
p. 252.

169

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After the Apocalypse: Hara Tamiki's Writings on the Bombing of Hiroshtma

Author(s): Brett de Bary

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