25th Annual Student Research Conference
An Existential Wail
Daivd D. Winn
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
In The Silent Cry Kenzaburo Oe chronicles the lives of two brothers returning to their home village in southern Japan in the 1960s and their struggle with a strange and absurd world. Each brother undergoes unique, personal crises, and their existential suffering can be looked at as an expression of a larger mindset in their culture, which at the time was particularly conflicted with their defeat and demilitarization after the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My paper will explore the tragic and absurd environment of the book as well as the characters reactions to and attempts to cope with it. It will also deal with why these characters are so relevant to their historical context and how their stories mirror earlier Japanese history.
Keywords: Kenzaburo, Oe, Silent, Cry, Japanese, Existentialism
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 109-1
Location: VH 1408
Time: 8:00