Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Susan Rowe
JPN 103
Final Paper
Proletarian Literature in Japan
The Meiji political novels and Proletarian literature in the late nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century Japan were a response to Japans shift towards capitalism and industrial
economy. Whereas the authors of Meiji political novels envisioned dreams of futuristic political
utopias, writers of Proletarian literature were more concerned with highlighting the social and
political difficulties faced by working-class Japanese. The earlier Meiji political novels that
were associated with the Movement for Freedom and Peoples Rights paved the way for the
later Proletarian literature, which was heavily censored for having political and social ideals that
contrasted that of the traditional government. Some works of the time, in particular Hans
Crime by Shiga Naoya and Hell Screen by Akutagawa Rynosuke, highlight the difficulties
of writing Proletarian literature when facing censorship of works that spoke out against the
government.
Hans Crime is a story about Han, a knife-throwing circus performer, who has been
accused of intentionally murdering his wife during his knife throwing act. During an interview
with the judge, Han says that he had wanted and willed his wife to die, but did not intentionally
murder her. After considering Hans testimony, the judge passes his verdict of not guilty,
although it is unclear if he is not guilty of first degree murder or cleared of all charges. This
verdict reflects Proletarian literature censorship, with the Japanese government as the judge and
the author of a work of Proletarian literature as Han. The verdict the government is passing is
whether the authors work should be censored.
Ironically, although Han is not guilty of his crime (the authors work gets the
governments approval), he did murder his wife (the work should be censored). This can be
interpreted in two ways. Firstly, the author managed to publish uncensored Proletarian material
right underneath the governments noses because they missed the intended message of the work.
Secondly, perhaps whoever was reviewing the work of Proletarian material for censorship
purposes sympathized with the authors views and allowed the work to be published. While
Hans Crime shows the censorship process after a work of Proletarian literature is written,
Hell Screen shows whether an author chooses to be a part of the Proletarian literature
movement.
Hell Screen is a story about a master artist, Yoshihide, who is commissioned by the
Lord of Horikawa to paint a hell screen, a painting that depicts the circles of hell. The story is
told from the perspective of a servant who describes the characters of the Lord of Horikawa and
Yoshihide through rumors he has heard. The Lord of Horikawa is portrayed as a respected and
generous man whereas Yoshihide is described dark and crazy. At a first glance, the story may be
read as a fantastical one of an artists descent into madness, but it hard to agree that the character
of the Lord is as good and benevolent as the servant claims. For example, he has a boy serve as
a human pillar of Nagara Bridge and burns Yzuki, Yoshihides daughter, when she refuses his
sexual advances.
The narrators characterization of the Lord of Horikawa serves as another display of
censorship, and a rightful one, because if he had spoken out against the Lord, he probably would
have died as well. In Hell Screen, the servant and Yoshihide both represent Proletarian
literature authors, but Yoshihide is an author who expresses his opinion and the servant is one
that accepts censorship from the Japanese government, or the Lord of Horikawa. The purpose of
One could argue that authors who did not contribute to the Proletarian literature
movement feared the consequences they may have faced, whether it was censorship or being
tortured to death like Kobayashi Takiji. Although Hans Crime and Hell Screen have
addressed the issues that government censorship brought, they did not offer any solutions to how
to override the censorship, although such writings definitely could not have been published
during the early twentieth-century.