Osamu Dazai and Yuko Tsushima -- The Suicidal and His Daughter

 "He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost."(Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human)

“Just as my mother belonged in the kitchen, my father belonged in the graveyard.”(Yuko Tsushima, Of Dogs and Walls)

 

 

It came to light recently that the book I've been reading for this class has done little to capture my attention, and even now, some weeks from where-ever off in the audiobook I was, I dully remember that this artist was not kind to her children. Something about how her children-- who succeeded in life, came to write memiors-- became celebrated people, seemingly at the expense of her mother. I can't say whether or not she was a good mother, that artist-- I think people are odd like that, that they can be a good artist and a good person but a horrid parent. It's not that off, really, that some people succeed in different ways, I suppose it's more strange that someone that we come to idol may have some flaws. Parenting must be difficult, and I don't wish that task upon anyone unless they voluntarily make it-- anyways, all this to say that I can't speak on how she raised her daughters-- I don't know, and I don't really care to know.

There's a theme there, about how we can know someone in certain aspects and not others-- to think of an artist as an artist but not parents. There's also something to be said about how pain travels down generations like that. That is how we come upon Osamu Dazai; suicidal artist, and apparently father.

Osamu Dazai, born Shuuji Tsushima, is considered to be one of Japan's classical modern authors, most notably with his works of The Setting Sun and No Longer Human. Themes in his works often include the decline of the human condition, which reflects the era of Japan he was born and writing in, namely from 1928 (with his college publications of Cell Literature) to 1948 (with his final publication of No Longer Human). His works are popular, specifically among the youth, specifically in times of economic strife, instability, and general uncertainty about the future. That's how many interpret his work, anyways. I myself have only been able to read one of his works, No Longer Human, which is often considered to be Dazai's psuedo-autobiographical and final work before he killed himself. His work does follow a lot of what's reflected in a common reading of Japanese literature; the depictions of the Japanese upperclass during the changing times, often serve as a glimpse into what the world was like during Dazai's life, which include what seem to be the reaching affects of the Cold War (there are bits about joining a communist party, I think?). It's not what I got from the book when I first read it.

No Longer Human sparks a degree of kinship, I think. Empathy. Yozo, the main-character, is jarringly familiar, and is compelling nonetheless. Oh, what am I saying-- this isn't a book review. The plotbeats of No Longer Human follow the general beats of Dazai's life, mostly marked with suspicion, fear, which slowly graduate into self destructive alcoholism. It's steeped with melancholy and misanthropy, and it's hard to imagine that Dazai didn't struggle as Yozo did. Dazai wrote, and pressured himself into greatness, and trying to achieve and maintain that-- maybe the stress got to him. Maybe he felt he achieved all he could. Dazai was inspired by Akutagawa Ryuunoske, author of Rashomon, who, during the early stages of Dazai's writing career, killed himself. Those are Dazai's influences, reflected on his final works.

Dazai exists in a weird vaccuum-- it's probably that I should read more Japanese literature if I want to consider myself well read on this. I didn't consider that he had a child with one of his wives, but he did. And oddly enough, I look to her works now-- partly because this assignment reminded me of her, as did the motherhood-griping-- that yes, one of the saddest authors I've read did have a daughter.

I've only had time for a summary of her works, one being A Very Strange, Enchanted Boy. Within it details what is interpreted as a mother looking upon her son, and there's this argument of interpretation-- whether the mother's expectations on her son is what causes her to worry so much, if her worries are unwarranted in that, if she is the one to blame in that story. I haven't read it; I can't really speak on it.

But it was strange, to think, if Yuko Tsushima had a child-- and her father, who died by suicide when she was young-- to consider how that affected her views on parenting, if she vowed to be more than her dead father in this one case of caring for others and living. It's hard to say-- and given that the penname Osamu Dazai does not reflect the familial relationship between Shuuji Tsushima and Yuko Tsushima-- it's hard to tell how much readers look for her. But I did-- I only know her through her father, and his contributions. In a way, that's a bit of disservice to her, but that's also just what came to be.

Ah, well.

For more information on:
Osamu Dazai and his works:

https://youtu.be/yXATG3NSZjE?si=I7aR_H8EygRP4IBL

Yuko Tsushima and her work:

https://youtu.be/49ZxNCD2jOk?si=u08oLBoj6gbvsRQ1