Abe Kobo and the Theater of the Absurd

29 min readDec 24, 2015

Abe Kobo and the Theater of the Absurd

There may be those who are content to dwell in a corner of some conceptual fortress that others have constructed, but no one who has ever glanced outside can fail to notice the world is teeming with unregistered continents, unnamed lions, and ghosts that do not revert to tufts of grass –Kobo Abe (Bolton 2009:44)

Kobo Abe is remembered as one of the most interesting Japanese writers of the 20th century. His literary production spans many genres including novels, critiques, screenplays and theater, as well as musical composition and photography (these were occasionally exhibited in his novels and plays). The first exposure I had to Kobo Abe was through his novel, Face of Another (1964), a story about a man whose face is permanently disfigured in a horrific accident, which profoundly affected his ability to interact with the world. He creates a mask so realistic that no one would know it was not a true human face. The story not only presents existential themes, but was also clearly reflects the postwar realm in which it was written. Kobo Abe’s style of writing puts him in a league of his own. His talents as a writer and his intuitive insight as an intellectual made him a central figure of the Japanese avant-garde. Abe earned such awards as the Second Postwar Literary Prize in 1951 for his short story The Red Cocoon (1949), as well as the highly acclaimed Akutagawa Prize for Kabe (1951) in the same year. Outside of Japan, Abe was equally revered as a writer, receiving an Honorary Degree of Human Letters from Columbia University and being a frequently considered Nobel Prize candidate, culminating in a posthumous award after his death in 1993 (Rollyson, 2004: 1).

This thesis is an in-depth explication and analysis of two of Kobo Abe’s theatrical works, The Ghost is Here, and Friends. I postulate that the themes of capital commoditization commodity capitalism and the degradation of humanity have distinct ties to Abe’s interpretation of the postwar Japanese setting. Both Friends and The Ghost is Here portray more overarching socioeconomic critiques, i.e. corruption within the modern capitalist systems and the dehumanization of society within those systems. The themes and issues present in the plays portray a highly sophisticated level of perception (on the part of Abe) on the many issues present within the postwar period. However, this paper will be limited to Abe’s writing of the late 1950s period of (which includes The Ghost is Here, 1958 and Friends, 1959 (Kobo 1993: 1)). In this period, Abe’s black humor and highly critical analysis of the capitalist and social systems are especially noticeable, likely the result of which he experienced through communist party doctrine. In order to more effectively analyze Abe’s works I will first lay out Abe’s background and the postwar Japanese absurdist theater context in which he was writing. I will also summarize various spheres of intellectual thinking in the postwar era. I will then present the framework being used to analyze Abe’s two plays.

I chose these two plays for three main reasons; one, because these plays were done within a limited span of the Japanese postwar period (the late 1950s) and a particularly important part of Abe’s life, i.e. when he was still part a member of the Japanese Communist Party. The two plays that I will be discussing are in art motivated by Abe’s reactions against or agreeing with certain ideals Abe presented through his involvement with the party. Abe’s view on his plays was that none of his works were definitive but rather, were always subject to change, a view that is most relevant to the analysis of Friends. Second, the plays share a common concept and execution. Kawamoto Yuzo states that, “up to a certain point in time, Abe Kobo’s plays had a definitive allegorical character” which Iles alludes to during Abe’s later progression into the dream state format of playwriting, a format which I have seen confirmed through my research (Iles 2000: 121). Unlike Abe’s increasingly “non-literary” forms of theater production, these two plays address abstract existential issues in an allegorical setting. Three, Abe’s characters consistently mirror Japanese attitudes during the postwar period (in this case, the late 1950s), questioning postwar ideals and inherent prejudices, and yet are also relevant in an international arena. Through these two plays he questions the contented complacency of these groups of people with regard to their own involvement with the local, national and international entities that dictate their existence. Abe also directly addresses the social interactions and implications of his characters’ actions. He analyzes their actions through capitalist endeavors (The Ghost is Here), and supposed “charity” under the guise of brotherhood (Friends). All of these aspects I will delve into more deeply with my analysis of each of the plays.

While Abe’s novels and involvement in movies with Hiroshi Teshigahara also have a strong postwar Japanese rhetoric running through them, and have been the primary source for most of Abe’s critical attention, I focus on Abe’s work in theater. I am analyzing the theater of Kobo Abe because his theater is not only an important aspect of his work as a writer, but also because Abe’s theatrical productions worked directly from events happening during the postwar era. Abe had a very distinct vision for the content of his productions and how they should be performed; theatre became a center point of his life’s work i.e. writing, direction, and production (Shields, 1996:44). Within each of Abe’s plays I have found an interesting and incredibly useful conversation regarding the Japanese ethos on how their country was changing with, and as a result of, globalization and modernization during the postwar era. During the late 1950s, the discourse that runs throughout Abe’s work concerns the negative aspects of capitalism and communist brotherhood that were present in the modernization and westernization of Japan. Reflecting both Abe’s ideals and opinions and the public’s position within the intellectual discourse of the time, the postwar discourse encompasses a wide range of topics and thus proves to be not only a foundational aspect of my essay, but also problematic. With this in mind, I will later define and incorporate only specific aspects of the Japanese postwar discourse that is present within the contextual and analytical sphere of Abe’s work. Abe’s use of the theater was in reaction to various postwar Japanese themes, as well as to propagate social and political change; therefore I will take into account certain major events in Japan, such as the economic changes of the high growth era and the Japanese place in global society, normative social opinions (both with regard to relative current events and overarching social opinion, i.e. day to day activities), and Abe’s personal development during the above periods. Themes such as seclusion, imprisonment, violence and manipulation are also prevalent in many of Abe’s plays and can be directly connected to postwar themes and issues in Japanese society. While these themes have a much wider scope of reference they are still pertinent elements of Abe’s plays and will thus be taken into account within my analytical scope as ways to examine how Abe comments on and interacts with Japanese society.

Another catalyst for focusing on Abe’s theater, as opposed to other theater personalities of the time, is the international quality of his work as a writer. Abe’s plays were the first to gain acclaim outside of Japan (Keene 1993: xiii). One major distinction for Abe, as a writer, is that he grew up outside of Japan in Manchuria, which may contribute to his “outsider” perspective of the Japanese situation, as well as his place within it. Abe frequently recalls the bleakness of the Manchurian landscape, as well as how the town in which he lived was set up like a labyrinth, which came to embody for him a sense of danger, seclusion and isolation from the rest of the world that this place represents. Abe was never formally trained as a writer; rather, like many artists such as Chekhov, Kato Shuichi, Soseki, and Ogai, he got a degree in medicine (Takaya, 1979: 11). Given Abe’s range of interests and analytical mind, his degree in medicine is not terribly surprising. He loved and excelled at math and science and felt an obligation to follow in his father’s medical career path. Though Abe never used his degree, his analytical style recalls his former training.

Postwar Japan

I address selected postwar Japanese themes in this section to better integrate the issues that Abe was addressing within his theater in the late 1950s. The various issues and ideals present in Japan were not exclusive to Japanese wartime memories and how Japan interpreted to war years, but also fully incorporated how Japan was progressing, addressing social injustice, radically transitioning to a new political system, and embracing the work of newly emancipated intellectuals. Issues such as the nostalgic re-association with rural Japanese lifestyles and the advancement of capitalism were all central themes and issues in the postwar and Abe’s works. In addition, the issue of the commoditization of people not as valuable citizens but as materials to be utilized, liquidated and discarded for profit, are also addressed in The Ghost is Here (Iles 2000:127–129). The postwar mentalities of Japan spanned over thirty years and more or less found their end at the close of the Showa era in 1989 (Gluck 1993: 65). Abe’s work too changed with the progression of the postwar years and his earlier work during the late 1950s is categorized as the darkest of humor, contrasting with much of his later work, which is less dark. Both The Ghost is Here and Friends portrayed more overarching social themes (which were exemplified through his large cast of characters). It was not until his later years that Abe shifted his focus to individuals within a social context.

A useful way to make sense of various postwar points of view is to think in terms of generations and intellectual ideological separations. In approaching postwar mindsets, it is important to keep in mind generational and age differences, as well as ways in which one can retroactively construct the historical interpretation of those mindsets. The first perspective I take into consideration is from William W. Kelly and his analytical technique involving analysis of the postwar with regard to various generations’ perspectives. I take into account the generational aspects of postwar Japanese society because each generation approached the internationalization of postwar Japan in very different ways. Abe, being born in 1924, fell in more closely with the First Generation Japanese (those born during the Meiji/Taisho Era, 1931–1945), even if his age slightly exceeded it, because he experienced the (approximately fifteen) years leading up to the war (Kelly 1993: 197–198). This generation experienced Japanese society as it was constituted after the invasion of Manchuria, and was more familiar with the militaristic nationalism that prevailed in the Showa era. This generation was young enough during World War II in Japan to be reciprocates of suffering during the war, but not old enough to have personally inflicted the suffering. This generation would later be characterized by their workaholic tendencies and strong ties to the progression of the Japanese family in society, as well as Japan’s position on the international stage (all of which strongly exemplify Abe’s character)(Kelly 1993: 197). The secondanalytical device I borrow from Carol Gluck and her explanation of those intellectuals (whom she calls “Custodians of the Past”) who retroactively interpret the Japanese postwar condition. These intellectual groups were divided into four groups, one of which included the “progressive intellectuals” who were defined by their direct activity, articulation and influence in the postwar discourse (Gluck 1993: 70–79). Abe is more closely associated with this group because of his work in the theater, which gave him a stronger and more active role in the Japanese creative community.

Japanese Absurdist Theater

It is also important to take into account the nature of Japanese Absurdist Theater at the time, so as to better understand Abe’s place within it. While Abe felt himself to be outside of the Japanese modern theater movement, he was nonetheless an integral part of its definition on an international level. Absurdist Theater holds an extremely interesting niche within the Japanese postwar environment. The absurdist theater of Japan addresses the existential themes and overarching issues (such as loss, isolation, anger, and sadness) that one might expect. Their European counterparts such as Sartre and Beckett, among others, were addressing absurdist Theater. However, Japanese Absurdist Theater was distinguishable from the rest of the absurdist world because of Japan’s geographical and philosophical place in history. This allowed for a vibrant microcosm that facilitated a vastly different kind of absurdist progression within the realm of theater from that of Europe. The major difference is not in the way it mimics the absurd reality but rather lies in the fact that the realities that are being portrayed are qualitatively different because of the cultural differences present between Japan and the west. As Goodman explains, while European Absurdist Theater has been greatly defined by the historic progression of European theater, Japanese Absurdist Theater lacks that same definitive quality, but rather comes as a result of westernization and (in part), serves as an assessment of similar European Absurdist as well as an introspective analysis of themselves (Goodman 1972: 369). In short, the production of Japanese Absurdist Theater was an extension of the Japanese questioning their place within the globalization and modernization of their country with respect to western powers.

Abe was not only a potent part of this movement within Japan, but used the the concerns of this theatrical tradition in unique and interesting ways. This changed the way many of the theater systems within Japan operated with regard to training and acting styles, as well as allowing for new, riveting, difficult and more in-depth ways to look at the issues of the period through absurdist theater. This is evident in his works The Ghost is Here and Friends, and was most likely exacerbated by his involvement in the Japanese Communist Party and his critique to the Shingeki movement, which addressed the increased emphasis on westernized styles of play writing and production through critiquing or impersonation (Iles 2000: 116). Abe was able to produce such radically different styles of theater because he had been cut off from the theater world, claiming, “If I’d known anything about plays at all, I don’t think I could have written them” and until he had written his first play he had never seen a theater production (Iles, 2000, 125).

The Ghost is Here

Abe’s The Ghost is Here was written in 1958, a period in his playwriting career that is marked by his use of black humor as a way to present his social and political messages. Abe’s broader socioeconomic themes, and the human places within them, are also characteristic of his writing period between 1955 and 1960 (Iles 2000:116). As opposed to many of Abe’s works that focus primarily on the individual and their metamorphosis (both literally and metaphorically), works such as The Ghost is Here and Friends focus on a wider view of the social situation and the characters’ places within it. These plays are better known for critiquing and criticizing Japanese and Western countries, as oppressors of the suffering of others (Iles 2000: 116). In many cases there is not one main character, but a group of characters that shares equal importance within the play.

The Ghost is Here is one of Abe’s longer plays and the storyline takes many twists and turns that mirror the random and vast growth of the capitalist system in society. The play, too, portrays a warm enthusiasm by many of the characters that cause the audience to feel very much at ease. It is only upon reflection that one notices that the characters’ enthusiasm is not a product of love or righteousness, but rather by the hope of making money, which adds to the blackness of the plays’ humor and emphasizes the anti-capital/commoditization theme (Shields 1996:138). Furthermore, this commoditization is based on a completely nonexistent empire, i.e. “the Ghost” or “Mr. Ghost”, proving that, within the confines of the play, anything can be capitalized on, no matter how absurd.

The play begins innocently with Oba Sankichi, a businessman, or con artist, and Fukagawa Keisuke, a war veteran who is plagued by headaches resulting from his perpetual identity crisis and constant self-deception. It is revealed that the ghost of his wartime friend whom he unintentionally killed, and is trying to make amends for, haunts Fukagawa. The absurdity comes when the character of “Mr. Ghost” gains a prominent main role within the play, even having lines. However, neither the audience, nor any of the characters (except for Fukagawa), can hear him. The incorporation of a non-existent main character within the play is an effective way to cause the audience to personify an idea, therefore making the actions surrounding that idea more permissible. In short, the later actions of “Mr. Ghost” in the play become more and more tyrannical and demanding, however, the audience does not initially interpret the ghost’s increased desire for power as the snowball effect of the capitalist system. Rather, the audience interprets those actions as a single person’s increased lust for power. This causes the ending of the play (when the ghost is found to be a non-existent fabrication) to be startling and disorienting. All of these techniques further the need for direct and retroactive analysis of Abe’s plays, therefore making theme more effective.

The story behind Fukagawa and his ghostly friend takes place during World War II, making it a postwar issue. Themes such as violence, the degradation of men, and aspects of mental anguish are present within Fukagawa’s wartime experience. Despite the fact that such themes are not central to the play, they are underlying themes that profoundly affect the characters in indirect ways.

Mr. Fukagawa and his friend… were running around the jungle somewhere in the South Pacific, trying to escape… They only had one canteen of water left… They couldn’t drink the local water because of parasites. It was hot, and the place they were headed for was still a long way off… Each gradually became suspicious of the other over the canteen. They were like animals… In the end, they tossed a coin to see who would get the canteen… Mr. Fukagawa lost. He sat down and covered his face with his hands, patiently waiting for his friend to go away… But no matter how long he waited, the friend showed no signs of leaving… Waiting was frightening. It was waiting for death… Finally, when he couldn’t stand it any longer, he lifted his head and looked. The friend had gone out of his senses… There was nothing to do but sit the friend there in the place of himself, and to take the canteen… The friend then died (Abe 1993: 188).

Fukagawa needs pictures of the dead so that he can help ghosts who are “looking for their origins” find their identity and go back to regions of their life they had forgotten in death (Abe 1993: 136). Fukagawa’s project of finding pictures of the ghosts turns into a capital project when Oba devises a plan to make money by buying pictures of ghosts and later setting up a ghost industry. The wife and daughter of Oba, Toshie and Misako, are introduced when Oba goes back to his home after eight years of estrangement. Oba’s wife and daughter own a struggling electronics shop, which opens the door for another of Abe’s running themes.

Ah! No matter what anyone might say, this is the Age of Electricity! (crooning) Electricity is the servant of Magic! A servant which never complains, which will give endlessly of itself, which will never tire! To improve life, first electricity (Abe 1993: 143)!

Misako praises electricity as a means to eliminate strife and free the world from the difficult confines that are present without it. However, while Misako may see the progression of technology as a saving grace, it is immediately made obvious by her mother that the main concern of the two women is to acquire customers as a result of the new technological developments, continuing the capitalist theme. Technological progress is a common theme throughout many of Abe’s works. Furthermore, distrust, aversion and direct hostility toward nature is paired diametrically throughout the play. This is very closely related to the Japanese nostalgia toward rural Japan at the time. While this nostalgia was most commonly associated with simpler ways of life, attributed with lower levels of stress throughout daily life, and the ideal of hard working “good” people, Abe more closely associated the rural as backwards and full of superstition, exacerbating the ability of the capitalist hierarchy to maintain power through means of manipulation and deceit. This is not to say that Abe is an unquestioning proponent of technology’s role in social capital, rather, within the play Abe is very critical of technological progression when it is associated with the backwards, superstitious greed of the profit-minded capitalist system (Iles 2000: 128).

Abe’s incorporation of the theme of technological progression harkens back to his history in medical school, and he frequently explains his plays in mathematical and scientific terms. When explaining the bizarre realities created within his work he states,

Logic such as this transcends the ordinary use of the word. It can perhaps be understood as an experience similar to that encountered by a person who is trying to prove a theorem in geometry who suddenly discovers an unexpected subsidiary line. Physicists are right when they say that we need some new labels for reality (Shields 1996: 135).

Rather than labeling the reality that Abe incorporates into his work, he accentuates various aspects of that reality and allows the audience to find their own labels or definitions. Abe uses his work less to define particular issues at hand, and more to point out issues and their various dimensions, letting his audience draw their own conclusions.

When Oba and Fukagawa arrive at the home of Toshie and Misako, they are met with disdain. Oba had supposedly killed a man, which is the only source of power that Toshie (who knows the witness to the crime) holds over him. This knowledge is later transferred to Misako, who uses this knowledge in a very different way, to try and stop what she believes to be the exploitation of people through Oba’s venture. The play soon splits the characters into two groups of people as the “Ghost business” progresses, Misako and Fukagawa in one camp, and everyone else in the other. Oba and the rest of the characters in the latter group concern themselves only with making money through the exploitation of the “Ghost Market”, while Misako aggressively separates herself from the capitalist endeavor and has a far more altruistic sense of human life (Iles 2000: 128). Abe uses Misako’s character as a beacon of light in a world of manipulation. Fukagawa, on the other hand, while being the driving force behind the market (as he is the only one who can communicate with “Mr. Ghost”), is less a figure who determines the direction of the capital, but more a pawn of the system, who lacks the ability to resist the ghost’s demands and consequently, the market. Misako notes, “It’s just that I feel sorry for Mr. Fukagawa. He does exactly what the ghost tells him” (Abe 1993: 205).

Oba begins his business by advertizing “Wanted: Photographs of the Dead. High Prices Paid. Sunbeam Electronics, Hill Street” (Abe 1993: 154). This then makes commodities of the photographs. As Oba notes, “…whenever somebody’s extremely anxious to buy something, no matter what it may be, the price goes up… I want it, you want it… it’s getting more and more valuable” (Abe 1993: 172). Thus the cycle of buying and selling ghost pictures begins and the capitalist enterprise is built on an ineffable entity. Furthermore, the enterprise grows exponentially as more and more opportunities open, including the construction of a Ghost Meeting Hall, “Ghost cures” to alleviate a cornucopia of ailments, ghost insurance (which arises from the suicide of an overzealous believer), and even a “ghost fashion show”. As the industry grows, everyone except for Misako becomes involved in an attempt to prosper financially.

The ghost also begins to get more and more violent towards Fukagawa as he craves more power, further asserting the hegemonic power over the entire capitalist system that was created around him. It is when the ghost desires to become mayor and get married that the absurd capitalist system starts to crumble and rather than the ghost working for the system, the system has to start working for the ghost. The conclusion of the play comes when the “Real Fukagawa” appears and liberates Fukagawa from “Mr. Ghost”. Fukagawa, rather than truly being followed by the ghost of his dead friend, is revealed as the ghost. Fukagawa exclaims, “It’s me!” upon the realization of who he really is (Abe 1993: 220). Finally freed from the system, Fukagawa leaves the system to find a means of maintaining itself, which it does by the perpetuation of lying about “Mr. Ghost”. The cycle is thus perpetuated because the rest of the casts of characters are able to directly control the actions of the ghost.

The strength of Abe’s critique of the venture capital system is apparent, that “’anything can become product’; that ‘a lie is always ever so much more believable than reality’; and that in essence the ghost is here” (Shields 1996: 138). The play serves as an allegorical representation of the entire capitalist system by presenting the audience with a world full of people whose lives are based on exploitation and the acquisition of money. However, despite the seemingly hopeless situation attributed to breaking the capitalist system in the play, Abe is ultimately forgiving of his characters and allows Fukugawa to be freed from the vicious system he unintentionally created.

The end goal of the play is for the audience to be able to say, “I’m me!” and liberate themselves from the system, much as Fukagawa did. The allegory of the story is with regard to Abe’s perception of the manipulative nature of big business, government and military on a populace that is swindled out of money to alleviate their superstitious fears that are subsequently perpetuated by big industry.

Friends

The first version of Friends was written in 1959, just one year after The Ghost is Here, and while both plays share the dark humor that is contingent with the late 1950s period of Abe’s writing, his social reactions that sparked the creation of the play are very different. While The Ghost is Here is more dependent on his agreement with the anti-capital ideals of the Japanese Communist Party, Friends is a reaction against the mandatory communal spirit of citizens that is commonly emphasized by a communist, socialist or totalitarian party doctrine (Iles 2000: 137). Abe at the time was still a participant in the Japanese Communist Party; however, he was beginning to find fault with portions of the party doctrine. These differences would later become more defined, leading to Abe’s being expelled from the party (Rollyson 2004: 2). Friends however does share similar themes with The Ghost is Here with regard to its criticism of capital business and industry.

Friends was a reimagining of an earlier story by Abe, Intruders, and shares many characteristics. Intruders is the story of a man who is invaded by a group of gang members and is subjected to a series of humiliating and emotionally devastating situations, finally being driven to commit suicide. While Friends shares a similar plot line and ends in the death of the intruded, it has much more nuanced relationships within the family itself and between the family and the man. It also introduces a postwar discourse on the power of dominant capitalist and governmental groups over a relatively powerless public. This play too shares the theme of the exploitation of a group or person for monetary gain; however, Friends underscores a more disturbing quality because the manipulative party acts under the guise of righteousness.

The play begins with a family sitting together on a darkened stage, with nothing to light their faces except for flashlights, giving the scene an extremely eerie quality. A song, The Broken Necklace by Takeshi Inomata, plays for the first of many times and the family explains how it is their “job” to “search out the lonely people and offer them love and friendship [and] heal loneliness [and] sniff out faint wisps of sadness” (Abe 1996: 12). The opening scene sets the mood of the play in two ways; it shows how the family works as one body with a common goal, and it also creates a binary between inducing suspicious feelings toward the play within the audience, or catching them off guard through the use of music that sets up a state of euphoric complacency (Shields 1996: 111). The song, The Broken Necklace, is also an important contributor to the mood of the play and the attitude of the audience. Abe states,

The music in Friends is the first step in stirring an audience out of a more prosaic point of view. Music on the stage is a kind of magical power intended to confuse the audience greatly. The reason that I use music has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. In fact the music directs the audience’s reaction to something that is completely different from the plot. I have used the music just as I might put baking powder in a recipe: it makes the audience swell. I use music something like Lewis Carroll uses poetry. Music in a play can have only the effect of being a parody. I find it is a very provocative technique to move an audience (Shields 1996:110).

It should also be noted that no character in the play is given an explicit name, rather they are given more ambiguous titles such as, man, father, grandmother, elder sister, etc. This is a common technique he used in many of his plays and is common in much of Japanese society. This technique may allow the audience to live more vicariously through the characters and thus come closer to the themes and lessons within the play. The technique also adds to the nuances present within the family; being unnamed characters, there is a natural desire on the part of audiences to attribute some kind of identity, so as to better relate. However, it is through the active attempt of the audience to try attributing an identity, that the characters are further personified in the eyes of the audience. This is precisely the effect Abe wanted in the context of this play, “I do not want the family to be too easily indicted. Nor do I want the man’s resistance too weak… Whether it is a family-like group or a gangster-like family, I don’t know. It is left deliberately vague” (Shields 1996: 111). The man plays an equally important role as the family and is not emphasized as the center character of the play. Abe intentionally places a greater focus on the relationships within the family, as opposed to making it one homogeneous entity. This makes the incorporation of man as the victim more successful because the audience is put in a more objective position, analyzing all of the characters individually rather than in polarized groups.

The family invades the man late at night, by tricking the man into letting them enter his residence, which they proceed to aggressively inhabit while the man stands in disbelief. The family acts as if they already knew the man though the man is sure that he has never met them before. The family uses rapid, disorienting dialogue to overpower the man. The family also begins the longer process of breaking down his mental faculties, and his ability to resist them.

The man soon attempts to rid himself of the family in a number of different ways. His first attempt is to call the police to report their unlawful entry; however, when the police arrive, along with the superintendent, they do not take the case seriously. Abe implies that the superintendent of the building has ulterior motifs or a pre-established bias towards the man.

The policemen have apparently been dropped some sort of hint by the superintendent; at any rate they seem uncommonly lax in their demeanor. It may be that the superintendent has been on bad terms with the man or that she may already have been bought over by the family; or it is simply that she is pretending to be neutral for fear of getting involved (Abe 1996: 25).

The family is able to make the already relaxed policemen even more off-guard with their smiles. The family’s smiles are an element of the family that is directly attributed to the amount of power they are able to wield over all outsiders, and use against the man. The policemen ultimately concludes “that there’s no injury to speak of” therefore, no reason for the policemen to become involved (Abe 1996: 29) The family’s smiles, which are explicitly stated as critical within the script, were a source of great importance to how Abe viewed the family’s place within the play. Abe’s vision of the family’s smile is in conjunction with “These prosaic posters of smiling family-like groups [which] inspired [him] with terror” (Shields 1996:111). The allegorical family within the play goes far beyond the incorporation of a simple family unit. Rather, the family in the play represents a wider and more powerful range of groups, such as business corporation, government, religion, or even social groups, whose power is benignly accepted in whatever sphere it inhabits (Shields 1996:111). This is strongly apparent when the family ultimately has even the police force sympathizing with them, rather than the victimized man, emphasizing a direct tie to government’s or business’s power over police forces.

The second of the man’s attempts to solicit help from the outside world comes from his plea to his fiancé. The elder son reaches the fiancé first and sways her opinion of the man’s sincerity and commitment toward their relationship. The man desperately and unsuccessfully seeks outside help, only to find that, despite the man’s crisis in his home, the world outside is has little concern for the man’s wellbeing. However, the fiancé offers to help the man by bringing a reporter to investigate the man’s situation; this too ends in failure. Rather than finding fault with the family, the report praises them as “marvelous” and as “solid and generous as the earth itself” harking back to Abe’s aversion to nature, discussed in The Ghost is Here); the reporter even goes so far as to ask to be a part of the family (Abe 1996:73). The reporter too can serve as an allegorical representation of sensationalized and easily manipulated media outlets.

Despite the events of the play, as seen by the audience, all being within the confined sphere of the man’s apartment, it is important to realize that the entire play is conducted against an urban backdrop that is a direct representation of the urban Japanese situation at the time. This is conveyed in a number of different ways. For example, the aspect of in-group and out-group mentalities are strongly portrayed by brief introductions of minor characters into the play/script, i.e. the policemen and superintendent, the fiancé, and the reporter. Each of these characters is present only briefly in the man’s household setting, and soon leaves and goes back to their own daily life without thinking much about the events that passed. Also, the family soon portrays their own involvement in the outside world via the normal activities that are taken for granted by the middle class. It is only the man who becomes perpetually confined to his home and alienated from the rest of society. Lastly, the incorporation of the newspaper as a source of comfort for the man shows that the urban modernization underlying the setting of the play plays an important role in how the characters (and Japanese citizens) interpret their situation.

People listen to the news only to feel reassured. Because however great the news of catastrophe they hear, those listening are still perfectly alive… news constitutes the announcement that it is still not the end of the world (Shields 1996: 114).

Ultimately, the man is reduced to the status of an animal as the family slowly chips away at his resolve. The man’s plotting to rid himself of the family through a successful eviction also fails and he clings to a pre-invasion self-conceptualization (Shields 1996:112). When the man finally does consider escape the family confines him in a cage, fully reducing him to the lowest state of captivity and putting him on par with animals.

Man: “Get the hell away!”

Youngest Daughter: “Isn’t he awful? Even a chimpanzee wouldn’t be so rude.”

Mother: “Don’t get too close to him. He’s still overexcited.”

Man: “Damn it! All your clever talk of neighborly love and the rest was a lot of bunk… Not even a slave would endure such treatment” (Abe 1996: 87).

… [The man] lies down on his side in a fetal posture. The next moment he gets on all fours like a dog. He starts to imitate a dog’s howling, at which the howling of a real dog is heard from a loudspeaker. Man again lies on his side in a fetal posture (Abe 1996: 89).

The final moments of the play are the most difficult both for the audience and those acting because the conclusion of the play is something ineffable, something that will continue beyond the play, something that surpasses reality, rather than a determined goal or ending action explain what this means exactly. How is “ineffable” so difficult. (Shields 1996: 114). It is stressed in the final moments of the play that the ambiguous reality surpasses the man’s formal complacency, as the middle daughter states, “And the commuter train, your time card, the desk with your name plate on it, the street corner with your company’s building — They’re all gradually melting away like sculpture carved out of ice” (Abe 1996: 91). The ending of the play shows the family’s interactions among themselves and man. The eldest daughter is brought closer to the man, even to the point of seduction, and in turn (almost as a result), becomes hostile toward other members of her family when it is discovered by the middle daughter that she and the man were talking about running away. Let it be noted, that the man may or may not have truly intended to run away with or without the eldest daughter; it is left intentionally ambiguous to the viewer. The idea of the man running away shocks the family so much that in turn they intensify his level of captivity by putting him in a cage and later poisoning him. This end is both confusing and unsurprising considering that, throughout the play, the family used the man’s income, home and possessions, at will without concern for his protests, while they preached an incessant mantra of moral righteousness and goodwill.

There is also the implication that the man’s murder was only one in a series of murders by the family. Despite the fact that it was the family who killed the man, they seemingly mourn the man as a friend, thus revoking all implication that they had committed the crime, saying, “The deceased was a good friend to us” (Abe 1996: 93). As the family leaves, the running theme of their powerful smiles is emphasized with the last sound the audience can hear being the laughter of the family. This not only implies that the family will continue going from individual to individual, taking resources and disrupting wellbeing, but also that they will quickly forget the man, along with the rest of society.

Conclusion

Both Friends and The Ghost is Here have strong socioeconomic themes. While The Ghost is Here is more concerned with the Capitalist machine and responds to Abe’s Communist Party involvement, Friends portrays a darker view on the overarching and prosaic powers of large bodies of power, whether it is government, big business, etc. It is important to consider the time period when each of these plays was first written (late 1950s), to better comprehend Abe’s state of mind. Abe’s more expansive themes, and large cast of characters that portray the various thematic elements of his work characterize this time period, as previously stated. Both plays strongly exemplify postwar discourses such as, capitalism, westernization, occupation, rural nostalgia, technological advances, and the Japanese identity in the globalizing system, as well as having the overarching theme of socioeconomic injustice and large casts that magnify the many dimensions of that justice through their own unique situation and point of view.

I have found that each play has important critiques of Japanese systems running through it; in Friends it was the power of large governing capital and social bodies and how they unabashedly take full rights to power and the actions and feelings of people who are underneath them. Furthermore, Friends emphasizes the danger and injustice of those power differentials and how they are ultimately a hindrance to the progression of society. With The Ghost is Here, it was the disjointed, confusing and ultimately empty goals of capitalism and how humans are degraded to mere commodities in the fight for economic supremacy. In addition, The Ghost is Here shows how absurd such systems are through their association with a nonexistent catalyst, i.e. the ghost.

In conclusion, Abe’s theater is an interesting and pertinent way to analyze the postwar situation, as he analyzes the situation in which he lived. The two plays, The Ghost is Here and Friends, provide examples of such an analysis. Each play takes a specific issue that is pertinent to the postwar period and explores it. With regard to The Ghost is Here, the issue was that of the injustices of socioeconomic capital and its subsequent degradation of man. In Friends, the issue dealt with the overarching and unquestioned powers of governing bodies, and how, under the guise of righteousness, a group can acquire undeserving power over others. Both issues regarding socioeconomic capital and governing body powers were significant issues in postwar Japan. For example, the increased commoditization and globalization in the postwar years caused many Japanese citizens to not only change the way they were living, but also to question their place within the new economic system. The issue of governing and socioeconomic powers relates directly to the occupation of Japan and its subsequent radical democratization, many times at the expense of the Japanese people, who rarely had enough food to feed themselves or their families and turned to the black market. This is a common theme in all of Abe’s theater works and was examined through many different styles of theater. The Ghost is Here and Friends are two examples of Abe’s more concrete and allegorical style of playwriting, and serve as an effective introduction to the larger spectrum of Abe’s work (which becomes increasingly more surreal and absurd), as well as provides a strong introduction to how writers of his generation were addressing various postwar issues and actively trying to make sense of their place within the historical setting.

Bibliography

· Iles, Timothy, Abe Kobo: An Exploration of His Prose, Drama and Theatre, European Press Academic Publishing, 2000.

· Takaya, Ted T., ed., Modern Japanese Drama: An Anthology, Columbia University Press, 1979.

· Shields, Nancy K., Fake Fish, Weatherhill, Inc., 1996.

· Guest, Michael. Autonomy and the Body in Samuel Beckett and Kobo Abe.

· Lamont-Brown, Raymond Kobo Abe: Japan’s novelist of alienation. Contemporary Review 263.1530 (1993): 31. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 Nov. 2009.

· Hardin Nancy S., Abé Kobo. An Interview with Abé Kobo. Contemporary Literature, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 439–456. Published by: University of Wisconsin Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1207771

· Yamamoto Fumiko. Metamorphosis in Abe Kōbō’s Works. The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Nov., 1980), pp. 170–194. Published by: Association of Teachers of Japanese. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488882

· Goodman, David. The Japanese Absurd. Books Abroad, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Summer, 1972), pp. 366–373. Published by: University of Oklahoma. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40126283

· Abe Kôbô, Christopher Bolton, Thomas Schnellbächer. Two Essays on Science Fiction. Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3, Japanese Science Fiction (Nov., 2002), pp. 340- 350 Published by: SF-TH Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4241103

· Abe, Kobo, Translated by Donald Keene. Three Plays. 1993 Columbia University Press, New York, Chichester, West Sussex.

· Gamble, Adam, and Takesato Wantanabe. A Public Betrayed. Copyrigth 2004 by Adam Gambert. Published by Regnery Publishing Inc.

· Bolton, Christopher. Sublime Voices; The Fictional Science of Science Fiction of Kobo Abe. Copyright 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Published by the Harvard University East Asia Center.

Written by Clary Estes