Author: Eugene(Chloe) Shim

From your examination of the novel’s narrative point of view and historical context, and from your application of New Historical Theory as a critical lens, what do you think is Ogai Mori’s perspective of Japan and its relationship with the West at this time, and what aspects of the story have given you these ideas?

The Wild Geese is set in 1880s during emperor Meiji’s reign. During Meiji period, Japan was going through drastic social reforms aimed to gain independence from the influence of the western countries.Before the Meiji period, Japan had been isolated from other countries; travel to foreign countries was banned and trade with foreign countries was strictly controlled by shogun lemitsu. However, this Tokugawa period ended in the Meiji restoration. During the Meiji period, Japan was forced to sign unequal treaties with western countries, and western nations gained one-sided legal and economic benefits from this treaty. In order to gain independence from the Europians and Americans , Japan carried out a drastic  reform, constructing a new railway and roads which is described in The Wild Geese a few times.

I think applying the new historical lenses enables us to focus on how the historical context of Japan has been interpreted and embedded  in The Wild Geese. In the first glimpse, The Wild Geese can be seen as a story  centered around the changes that occur to Otama’s life and environment around her as she becomes a mistress of a money lender. However, we consider the historical background of a Meiji period and the way Mori shapes the character’s view on the objects or animals that symbolizes the western cultures or influences, it becomes clear to us that The Wild Geese is not simply a story of a mistress Otama. The unequal power play between Otama and Suezo implies the relationship Japan had with western countries at that time and Otama’s thought that the power play between him and her is unequal symbolises the revival of conservative and nationalistic feelings that aroused among Japanese at that time.

what do you think is Ogai Mori’s perspective of Japan and its relationship with the West at this time, and what aspects of the story have given you these ideas?

In this novel, Japan in Meiji period is described in detail; the Muenzaka street, construction of a railway taking place, and so on. I think that in The Wild Geese, there are both instances when characters admires the western culture and instances when characters are reluctant to accept the western influence on their own culture and values. I think how Otama initially serves her duty as a mistress but changes upon realising Suezo’s profession resembles how Japan at that time had admired western culture and as a result tried to develop Japan in a way similar to how western countries did but had some sense of resignation at the same time. However, her transformation from an

As we discussed in class, The Wild Geese employs a first person narrator whose identity is veiled in secrets. He narrates the story in a retrospective manner, adding third person omnicient descriptions. Even though the narrator does not seem to be emotionally detached from the characters, since his relationship with the characters is not of great importance in this novel, we are drawn more into the power play between the characters rather than on the narrator himself.

, allowing the readers to diverge from focusing on the focus on the frame of the ideas that are constructed and conveyed through stories of Okada and

 

 

• How has your understanding of narrative technique, point of view and perspective developed / deepened so far?
• Refer to last year’s texts and the passages we’ve looked at (about the student and teacher, the 6 prose snippets, the story Dressing for the Carnival) to underpin and illustrate your thinking

A words perspective is so widely used in other subject areas and in media that we often do not clearly understand the difference between point of view and perspective. point of view is a type and the voice of narrator telling the story and that perspective refers to how the narrator perceives events in the story! I remember we often talked about the effect of Bechdel telling  her own story as a first person narrator and explicitly acknowledging the questionability of her reliability as a narrator especially when describing the relationship between Bruce and her and the way she viewed her family as a child. Also, I think Duffy’s poems are so powerful because she adapted the first person voice to tell the stories of the marginalised in our society to address the social issues.

-Learning about free indirect discourse was interesting as I thought it had both the merits of having the first person and third person point of view. It enables the narrator to embed another voice other than the character’s in one reporting of thoughts and hence shape the way we perceive the character. If the story was narrated in first person point of view, we would easily doubt the reliability of the narrative and therefore it would be less effective in shaping our thoughts/impression of the character in a certain way.

If I were Szymborska, I would want to point out how people tend to induce unnecessary anxiety within our society and be excessively sensitive yet they often forget what is the best thing we can do to stop the further spread of the virus:staying home. Efforts of the doctors and nurses who put so much effort into curing the patients easily become pointless if the rest of the population make choices to go out only considering their private benefit. Hence, the title of the poem would be “Feet” and I would compare and contrast the feet of people that are used to help them wander around with the feet of the doctors and nurses who sacrifice themselves and don’t stop working for the patients despite the high possibility of infection due to their contact with the patients. I would mock one person’s thinking process that leads one to decide to go out and yet is unhappy about the number of cases  increasing. In the last stanza, I would suggest that what this period affects people really depends on the way they approach it.  Some people can view this as a great opportunity for them to catch up on reading books, sleep, and work. What I really want to convey is the fact that positivity doesn’t exist in the world itself but is something that we as a society have to create.