安部公房から見たユダヤ人作家としてのカフカ : ―都市の中の虚構としての農民性―

Abstract

This research uses Abe's understanding of Kafka in order to compare the works, ideals and lives of the two authors. Abe was critical of the deep attachment to “agrarian consciousness” even in modern developed countries where life is based in the city, and sympathized with the “urban” and “heretical” values of Jews living in Europe, including Kafka. Both authors wrote about human life in contemporary society. In society today, people's words persist as information, and the information circulates away from the control of the individual, as other “selves”. They wrote about the conflicts between the individual and these other selves. As a German-speaking Jew born in Prague, Kafka did not have a spiritual homeland, and Abe, who was born in Japan and grew up in Manchuria, thought of himself as also being without a homeland. With such similar backgrounds, both writers often portrayed characters who did not properly belong to society. Because he lived in the city and was a Jew without a connection to the land, Kafka was fascinated by rural villages and agriculture, and in his later years considered emigrating to Palestine, the historical homeland of the Jews. However, he ultimately continued living in the city, with literature as his emotional support. Abe, on the other hand, explored the meaning of statelessness, and in his later years, became interested in Creole cultures.