The post-war period in Japan was a time of rapid change due to the Western influence of American occupation. Japan was being reconstructed and as a result, old traditions clashed with the new modern values. As Phillips argues, Ozu’s films “vividly enacted a particular contestation between tradition and progress in Japan’s immediate postwar social order at a time when the concept of a new formulation of nationhood was intertwined with a concurrent and inevitable sense of loss due to change” (155). Ozu’s films showed the struggle felt by Japanese citizens due to the conflicting viewpoints of adapting to change and holding on to the past. I will be looking at Ozu’s films, Late Spring and Tokyo Story, to articulate the struggle for young women The film is focused on an elderly couple visiting their children in Tokyo. All of the children are too busy with their own lives to adequately take care of their parents except Noriko, the wife of their deceased son. Despite the fact that they are not related by blood, Noriko goes out of her way to make her in-laws stay comfortable and enjoyable and is actually really glad to do it. Tokyo Story’s Noriko is also shown as a person with mixed traditional and modern values. She is a widowed, working woman in Tokyo yet honors and respects her in-laws. Her mother in law wishes Noriko would get remarried and forget about her son. She want Noriko to live a happy life. Noriko states however, that she is happy. At the end of the film however, Noriko confesses to her father in-law that she lied. The reason she hasn’t remarried isn’t because she can’t forget about her dead husband – in fact she often goes days without thinking about him. Unlike what society perceives of widows, she is neither grieving her dead husband nor looking for a new one. This causes a disconnect between society’s expectations of Noriko and how she actually feels which in turn caused her to feel like she is wrong and selfish. She often feels like the days go by but nothing changes and ‘her heart is waiting for something’. Noriko is articulating her own struggle to find a place in this society. Since she cannot reconcile her feelings with society’s expectations, she feels lonely and
Though Stephen initially feels isolated both physically and psychologically due to his illness, through the calm beauty of Matsu’s garden and the comfort Sachi provides, Stephen finds his stay at Tarumi to be much less secluded. This proves that though one may feel alone at times, other people or things may help vanquish that feeling. In today’s world, isolation is everywhere – it is seen through due disease, intelligence, race, etc. Yet, people find that little things like human comfort, such as Sachi, or object reminiscent happiness, like Matsu’s garden, are enough help them realize they are not alone. This sense of aid shows that like the flower in the midst of the desolate landscape, something small is all it takes to erase negative feelings.
In this chapter a war becomes abrupt into the capital, and it forces everyone to leave. Takiko’s mother hears about it and tells her husband t...
'Even with all the mental anguish and struggle, an elemental instinct bound us to this soil. Here we were born; here we wanted to live. We had tasted of its freedom and learned of its brave hopes for democracy. It was too late, much too late for us to turn back.' (Sone 124). This statement is key to understanding much of the novel, Nisei Daughter, written by Monica Sone. From one perspective, this novel is an autobiographical account of a Japanese American girl and the ways in which she constructed her own self-identity. On the other hand, the novel depicts the distinct differences and tension that formed between the Issei and Nisei generations. Moreover, it can be seen as an attempt to describe the confusion experienced by Japanese Americans torn between two cultures.
Though Stephen initially felt isolated both physically and psychologically due to his illness, through Sachi’s comfort and the calm beauty of Matsu’s garden, Stephen finds his stay at Tarumi to be much less secluded. This proves that though one may feel alone at times, other people or things may help vanquish that feeling. In today’s world, isolation is everywhere – there is isolation due disease, intelligence, race, etc. Yet, people find that little things like human comfort or object reminiscent of a happy past are enough help them realize they are not alone. This sense of aid shows that like the flower in the midst of the desolate landscape, something small is all it takes to erase all negative feelings.
During World War II, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans in the western United States were forced into internment camps because the government felt as though the Japanese were dangerous if they were not relocated. These camps were usually in poor condition and in deserted areas of the nation. The Japanese were forced to make the best of their situation and thus the adults farmed the land and tried to maximize leisure while children attempted to enjoy childhood. The picture of the internee majorettes, taken by internee and photographer Toyo Miyatake, shows sixteen girls standing on bleachers while posing in front of the majestic Sierra Nevada mountain range and desolate Manzanar background. Their faces show mixed expressions of happiness, sadness and indifference, and their attire is elegant and American in style. With the image of these smiling girls in front of the desolate background, Miyatake captures an optimistic mood in times of despair. Though this photograph is a representation of the Manzanar internment camp and, as with most representations, leaves much unsaid, the majorette outfits and smiling faces give a great deal of insight on the cooperative attitudes of Japanese Americans and their youth's desire to be Americanized in this time.
Japanese Americans underwent different experiences during the Second World War, resulting in a series of changes in the lives of families. One such experience is their relocation into camps. Wakatsuki’s farewell to Manzanar gives an account of the experiences of the Wakatsuki family before, during and after the internment of the Japanese Americans. It is a true story of how the internment affected the Wakatsuki family as narrated by Jeanne Wakatsuki. The internment of the Japanese was their relocation into camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the naval forces of Japan in 1941. The step was taken on the assumption that it aimed at improving national security. This paper looks at how internment impacted heavily on Papa’s financial status, emotional condition and authority thus revealing how internment had an overall effect on typical Japanese American families.
...nts, Ying-Ying predicts that Lena will be unable to control her future life if she does not “finish her rice”. Snowballing into a need for control over her environment, Lena fails to accomplish what she has worked so hard to fight for, and marries a man named Harold, who controls their marriage by demanding equality between everything they do and own. Unable to see the unbalance is her marriage, Ying-Ying is forced to show Lena by comparing it to a table created by Harold.
Akira Kurosaw’s Seven Samurai is a film that encompasses various ideologies in order to allow the audience to understand the lives of Japanese people during the 1600’s. The film delves deep in social issues of the roles of the people within the society, the expectations as well as the obligations within the respected castes and elements within groups of ; suffering, working together, protecting family and working for the better good of the community.
Although the term “revolution from above” is often used to explain the GHQ’s method of postwar reform in Japan (Dower, 1999: p.69), I argue that a similar motivation was in effect in the U.S.’s efforts to isolate all Japanese descendants in America and subject them to coerced American soci...
Over the past fifty years Japan has seen significant changes in all aspects of its society and the way it interacts with the outside world. For example, despite suffering a defeat in World War II, Japan soon became one of Asia’s greatest economic powers. In Japan in Transformation, 1952 - 2000, Jeffrey Kingston focuses on various aspects of change in Japanese society and politics in the period after World War II. These include the effect of the US occupation, analysis of postwar politics, the economic boom, changes in demographics, the treatment of women, and foreign policy and security issues. Throughout the book, the author tries and often succeeds to explain many of these changes as part of the legacy of the occupation. All in all, Jeffrey Kingston gives a thorough economic, politic and social analysis of this crucial period in Japanese history.
John Dower's "Embracing Defeat" truly conveys the Japanese experience of American occupation from within by focusing on the social, cultural, and philosophical aspects of a country devastated by World War II. His capturing of the Japanese peoples' voice let us, as readers, empathize with those who had to start over in a "new nation."
Kogawa reveals how Obasan’s silence made her struggle is the real world. “I clear my throat and stammer. I lack communication skills,” (Kogawa 269). Through this quote, Kogawa illustrates to the readers how being too silent about their feelings of a traumatic past can be detrimental to someone’s state of mind. Obasan loses her identity as she kept trying to suppress the negative emotions about her past. It should be the best interest for her to try to talk to someone about her feelings. On the flip-side, Naomi reveals the universal truth about dealing with adversity in her life. “Gentle Mother,we were lost in our silences. Our wordlessness was our mutual destruction,” (Kogawa 291). Naomi experiences a huge shift when Kogawa revealed this quote. Naomi at first did not realize that being silent about her horrid childhood experience was not helping her be happy in the present. She learned from her family’s fate and now she is willing to talk about her past. In Shoenut’s article, readers can get an in depth understanding of Joy Kogawa’s novel by exploring the aspects of
Nagata, Donna, K. "Expanding the Internment Narrative: Multiple Layers of Japanese American Women's Experience." Women's Untold Stories: Breaking Silence, Talking Back, Voicing Complexity. Ed. Mary Romero and Abigail J. Stewart. New York: Routledge, 1999. 71- 82.
In Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata, the four members of the Sasaki family are intimately followed after a tragic event affects the father early in the film. Due to the catastrophic nature of the event, the audience is quickly exposed to the individual secrets of the Sasaki family and how a family’s values could be perceived as decomposing in modern Japan. As the story progresses, each family member encounters or exposes their own obstacles in life, leading to a conclusion which, is ultimately left open to the viewer’s perception.
In addition, shortly thereafter, she and a small group of American business professionals left to Japan. The conflict between values became evident very early on when it was discovered that women in Japan were treated by locals as second-class citizens. The country values there were very different, and the women began almost immediately feeling alienated. The options ...