History and Literature, a Critical Examination of Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain
By
Andrew Nyongesa
Abstract
There is strong relationship between history and literature. Literature mirrors society in the social, political and economic and history traces the origin and development of society in the social, political and economic aspects. Some works of literature are sources of history and history works help in interpretation of literature. This paper employs new historicism to interrogate the relationship between history and literature in Ibuse Masuji’d Black Rain.
Introduction
New historicists observe that a work of literature is influenced by the author’s times and circumstances. They look at literature in the wider historical context, examining how the work reflects the writer’s times. The study of history therefore reveals much about a text, in this context, Black Rain. Studying the novel reveals a lot about history too. Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain is a documentary novel about the devastating effects of the Second World War on the Japanese society, particularly the impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Ibuse describes the violent destruction of the city. It is a protest against the bomb without overstatement of feelings. It comes in a number of private journals, the first being Yasuko’s, copied by her uncle, Shigematsu. He wants to pass it to a prospective suitor who wants to reject Yasuko having heard that she was in Hiroshima when the bomb fell. The second is Shigematsu’s private journal, which is the longest, traversing the novel; to reveal the horrific effects of the bomb. The third is shugeko’s private journal that depicts the wartime food security in Japan. There is another Yasuko’s journal that reveals her atomic disease and finally, Iwatake’s private journal and how he struggled to recover from the atomic disease.
Statement of the Problem
History and Literature are bedfellows and many literary writers use historical events as the cornerstone of their artistic works. This paper employs the new historicist criticism to investigate the relationship between history and literature in Ibuse’s Black Rain.
History, the Back Bone of Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain
The first historical reference is related to the bomb, in Shigematsu’s diary, he writes, “ I saw a ball of blinding intense light, and simultaneously, I was plunged into total darkness,” (36). Then he heard cries and screams of pain. He was flung in the trucks in the opposite direction. He was shocked because, ‘every house adjoining the station had been knocked flat,’ (36). Iwatake describes it in his private journal:
I had a glimpse of something that looked like a captive balloon drifting lazily dowmwards in the sky beyond the barracks roof. The next moement there was a white flash like lightning or the light from a great mass of magnesium ignited all at once. I felt a wave of searing. At the same time there was a terrifying roar…when I rose up, everything had been scattered and flattened… the destructive power of the bomb was fantastic (243-245).
The bomb refers to the nuclear bomb that was dropped in Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 by the United States of America to compel Japan to surrender (Walsh, 123). The Japanese empire under Hirohito had destroyed American fleet in Pearl Harbour in 1941, provoking the entry of the United States into the war. The bone of contention between the two powers was Japanese conquests in Asia, particularly their invasion of indo china after the fall of France in i940. The US president, Frankline Roosevelt, slapped Japan with an oil embargo to compel her to leave Indo China. In response, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour, killing more than three thousand Americans. After her entry into the war, the US started by supporting her allies to defeat Germany, which had caused a lot of harm on Great Britain and France. She was indeed defeated in 1944. After that, she demanded that Japan surrenders, Japan remained adamant. Having lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers liberating Japanese Islands like Okinawa, the use was not prepared to lose more lives. The US president, Harry Truman sanctioned the use of the atomic bomb.
Uncle Ueda tells Shigematsu, “[t]hat is what happens when you chase ideals like Greater East Asia Co-prosperity,” (130). Ueda is making a historical reference to Tanaka memorial of 1927 when the Japanese empire drew an ambitious plan to conquer the world. The first phase of the Tanaka Memorial was the invasion of Manchuria, which started in 1931. Japan’s mantra was Asia for Asians and so drove away the British from Singapore and French from Indo China.
When the novel begins, Ibuse describes the destruction of Hiroshima with utmost empathy. He writes, “Hiroshima is a burnt out city, a city of ashes, a city of death, a city of destruction, the heaps of corpses a mute protest against the inhumanity of war,” (18). As the destruction shocks them, they say that the enemy used what is referred to as the ‘new weapon’. The enemy mentioned here is the United States of America who had been provoked by Japan in 1941 when she destroyed her fleet in the Pacific.
There is also the mention of the Axis Alliance in the novel. It is a reference to the Alliances that were formed by world powers between 1938 and 1940, prior to the beginning of the Second World War. The Axis comprised of Germany, Italy and Japan while the Allies comprised of Great Britain, France, United States and Canada.
After the Hiroshima tragedy, there are rumours of “[a] large soviet army had breached the Machukuo border and come pouring into the country in great waves,” (200). These are not rumours as the novelist claims, they are historical facts. The Red army defeated Germany army and invaded Berlin in 1944 (Walsh, 156). Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator did not want to leave Japan to the US and Britain. He planned and invaded Japan in 1945.
Conclusion
History is therefore part and parcel of Ibuse Masuji’s novel, Black Rain. Without a proper mastery of history, the reader finds it hard to understand the novel.
Works Cited
Ibuse Masuji. Black Rain. New York. Kodansha International. 1969
Walsh Ben. GCSE Modern World History. London. Hodder Murray, 1996.
